Friday's Follies

Here we go again. Ready to start the final month.

		Team	Points	Bats	Slot	Arms	Start	Week
1.		Mudville Nine	19003	9588	7.24	9415	26.68	989
2.		The Congrega	18636	9083	6.86	9553	27.07	763
3.		Wizzard of Oz	18561	9374	7.08	9187	26.04	926
4.		Sonic Death	18398	9271	7.00	9127	25.87	758
5.		EVIL EMPIR	18372	9533	7.20	8839	25.05	914
6.		Bru Cru	18047	9143	6.91	8904	25.23	1027
7.		Banana Slugs	17495	8124	6.14	9371	26.56	712
8.		Florida Pirate	17364	9113	6.88	8251	23.38	950
9.		Little Leaguer	17359	8984	6.79	8375	23.73	800
10.		Mac & Zack A	16400	8750	6.61	7650	21.68	836
11.		Columbus Ma	15814	7995	6.04	7819	22.16	749
12.		Rosies Angels	15505	8049	6.08	7456	21.13	741

Mud is still cruising. Almost a thousand this week coming in second to Bru with 1027. Ozzie surged ahead this week securing a solid third spot. I just noticed that last week I failed to minimize the chart enough to see the week totals. Sorry about that. I fixed it.

It looks like Sonic had the best offensive week. Raising his average by .04. Mud still leads in this category and could possibly end the year at or above 7.25.

Bru had a stellar pitching week. Raising his average by .49. Almost half a point! I thought Mud had a really good week at .2 until I saw that. Even though I regressed I still lead in this category by a good margin.

Well its slowly turning into a laugher. I am not ready to concede defeat yet but it would be a stretch to think I can make the ending exciting. I console myself with the fact that I should have more pitchers going this week than Mud but even if I gain 100 points it's still a good margin. Personally I have emphasized my pitching all year and I have to take some satisfaction in my performance in that category. But I didn't keep my offensive numbers high enough. I'm first in pitching and seventh in bats. Mud is first in bats and third in pitching. That is the difference right there. I do take some consolation that my team is still very young. Hopefully (a BIG hopefully) it will blossom into a perennial contender.

Friday's Fanatical Fantasy Frolic!

My wife just brought home the Tony Dungy book form the library so I want to get this over with so I can start in on it.

		Team	Points	Bats	Slot	Arms	Start	Week
1.		Mudville Nine	18014	9114	7.23	8900	26.48	1004
2.		The Congregationals	17873	8650	6.86	9223	27.44	1082
3.		Sonic Death Monkees	17640	8774	6.96	8866	26.38	918
4.		Wizzard of Ozzie	17635	8908	7.06	8727	25.97	1020
5.		EVIL EMPIRE	17458	9048	7.18	8410	25.02	780
6.		Bru Cru	17020	8707	6.91	8313	24.74	838
7.		Banana Slugs	16783	7707	6.11	9076	27.01	949
8.		Little Leaguer	16559	8505	6.75	8054	23.97	902
9.		Florida Pirates	16414	8617	6.83	7797	23.20	837
10.		Mac & Zack Attack 2	15564	8323	6.60	7241	21.55	729
11.		Columbus Mad Cows	15065	7657	6.07	7409	22.05	754
12.		Rosies Angels	14764	7652	6.07	7112	21.16	792

Top week goes to myself for the second week in a row. I have six starters starting on the same day and that day fell twice in this week. I don't think they line up for this week so I will probably have an abysmal week. The weekly total can be skewed by this. The problem is that Mudville kept pace. Ozzie had a great week. Last week I said he was going to have to pick it up and the very next day he jumped way up. He is right there with Sonic now for third place. The 'ouch' week goes to Evil Empire He was within 330 last week. He is now 550 out. I would think that would be insurmountable. Last week I said 380 was too far out. That may have been premature but 550 does it. On a side note Bru is now 1000 out! It is time to take a moment of silence in apprciation for the champion and his official defeat. ... Ok, who let out the whoop?!

I messed the bat stat up again. I had been forgetting to subtract the all star break days. So this weeks numbers are going to be inflated compared to last weeks. Mud took a commanding lead, distancing himself from Evil.

Pitching is all mine! MINE I SAY! Banana has fallen back. I am almost a half point ahead of everyone. Almost a full point ahead of Mud. But his bats have been too good! Again with Piazza last night. Seems like everyday he has at least one with 20 or more points. And why can't Arod get hurt?!

I gained on Mud and am 150 back. Sonic and Ozz are 370 back. Is it a two man race? Do I have a shot? I will say this, unless Nathan has a bad string of luck I don't think I can surpass him with just good luck on my part. er skill.

Offerman's Bat

Welcome to another edition of the Friday Follies. While most 'happening' persons are using their Friday for less noble causes, I will sit and run my calculator and look at numbers. And who cares. I enjoy it.

		Team	Points	Bats	Slot	Arms	Start	Week
1.		Mudville Nine	17010	8595	6.97	8415	25.59	891
2.		The Congrega	16791	8186	6.63	8605	26.17	970
3.		Sonic Death M	16722	8311	6.74	8411	25.58	934
4.		EVIL EMPIRE	16678	8581	6.95	8097	24.62	850
5.		Wizzard of Oz	16615	8422	6.83	8192	24.91	831
6.		Bru Cru	16182	8217	6.66	7965	24.22	813
7.		Banana Slugs	15834	7290	5.91	8544	25.98	889
8.		Little Leaguer	15657	8029	6.51	7628	23.19	788
9.		Florida Pirates	15577	8213	6.66	7364	22.39	750
10.		Mac & Zack A	14835	7885	6.39	6950	21.13	833
11.		Columbus Mad	14311	7324	5.93	6987	21.25	603
12.		Rosies Angels	13972	7155	5.80	6817	20.73	702

I came out on top with 970. But how can I have TWO shutouts and still not break 1000? Pathetic. Columbus had the worst week. Bru is falling back. He is 380 back with less than a month and a half to go. He has a shot but ... This isn't 1968 and ESPN's show isn't called 'The Brunx is burning'. So that leaves us with 5. They are withing 270 points. Not insurmountable. Although Ozzie is going to have to pick up the pace or he will be the next one mercilessly tossed out of the party.

Bats for the week were pretty steady. Movement at this point will be minimal. I think Mud won this award with an advance of .03. Wow. His HUGE jump propelled him into first place over Evil. Those two are a full .1 over Ozzie and He is almost a full .1 over Sonic. They are significantly ahead of us.

I have taken the lead on 'arms'. In fact my two shutouts spiked my line up .35. By far the biggest gain. While we were generally up, only Sonic and I had any significant gain. I have decided that we should give awards for leading a particular stat. Maybe the 'Hitting Instructor' award for who has the highest 'slot' number and um.. 'Pitching Coach' for the guy who takes the 'Start' category. I would take great satisfaction in winning the 'Start'. My 'rotation' has almost completely turned over from last year. Burnett and Webb are the only two starters I had last year. O wait, I had Pettitte too. Putz was on there as well. So I had a turnover of 66%

I got Buchholz today!!!! Now he hasn't been as great this year but earlier I was looking over where I was in the waiver wire and who might be coming up this year that I would have a chance of getting. Buchholz was the guy I had my sights set on (is that sites or sights?). I ended up being at #2 but Mud didn't put a claim in. yay. Looks like he had a decent outing today.

Well we are getting close to the end. Five guys still in the hunt. Will Mud just continue to cruise along keeping us all at bay? Or will a dark horse shoot out of the pack and surprise us all. Man every start is crucial. Every points gained or lost because they were sitting on your bench is a tragedy. (I bet Mudville has lost more points on his bench than the next three combined). These are the times when good luck charms are tossed aside for desperate and fervent prayer!

P.S. Drop a line. I always intended for these posts to be the instigation for conversation. This wasn't intended to be a one man show. Talk smack. Commiserate. Make bold predictions. Just say something!

I had two shutouts tonight!

The title says it all! I have got to be luck personified. I mean if Edwin Jackson gets a shutout... um... anyone want to buy a lottery ticket and I will try to give you my luck and then we can split it halfway?

That really doesn't work does it. Too bad I object to lottery tickets morally. ;-)

I actually went into the evening thinking I would drop Jackson for Burnett coming off the DL tomorrow. But. uh. I changed my mind. Should have dropped Wandy though... He has to start next on the road and for some reason he is terrible this year on the road.

Fast Friday

		Team	Points	Bats	/Slot	Arms	/Start	Week
1.		Mudville Nine	16119	8129	6.94	7990	25.60	989
2.		EVIL EMPIRE	15838	8177	6.98	7661	24.55	856
3.		The Congregat	15821	7764	6.63	8057	25.82	906
4.		Sonic Death	15788	7867	6.72	7921	25.38	814
5.		Wizzard of O	15784	8010	6.84	7774	24.91	837
6.		Bru Cru	15369	7784	6.65	7585	24.31	905
7.		Banana Slugs	14945	6914	5.90	8031	25.74	771
8.		Little Leaguer	14869	7656	6.54	7213	23.11	948
9.		Florida Pirates	14827	7810	6.67	7017	22.49	906
10.		Mac & Zack A	14002	7646	6.53	6538	20.95	662
11.		Columbus Ma	13708	6991	5.97	6717	21.52	847
12.		Rosies Angels	13270	6792	5.80	6478	20.76	644

We have a church meeting all day today. So I am just posting the numbers. No stupid analysis.

Pitching Projections!

This is really harder for me to do on a per pitcher basis. I have turned my roster over so much. When evaluating a pitcher I usually just look at points generated per inning pitched. That can be deceptive because a starter that pitches farther into the game will produce more points than one who doesn't. Of course if it is a starter you could go by appearances. But to sum up I didn't project all my pitchers out. I stopped after Webb (my best one) only produced an 1109. bleh!

But we can analyze the overall effect. Again, applying 1100 as a good year and 1200 as a really good year, we can see where we stand. 1100x12=13,200. To figure out the total starts for a year we will just divide 162 by 5 which gives us 32.4. While some pitchers will pitch every four games considering days off, that number (32.4) is usually close to the norm. So 13,200/32.4=407.4. We then must divide that number by 12 since we have 12 pitchers. That number is 33.95. We are WAY off that number.

So where are we at? Banana, the best so far, (25.75) projects to 10,011. 3,200 off the pace of a 'good' season. My number is 9996 (15 points behind banana, not bad). The leader, Mud, projects at 9751. 260 off the pace Banana is setting.

What does this all mean? Well for starters, either pitching is underperforming this year or pitching is not equal to hitting. This can be seen in the totals in the Friday post. Pitching is pretty equal to hitting in their total numbers but you have 3 more pitchers working for your number so the averages are going to be well below the bat's averages.

What are the averages? Banana-834.25 Me-833 and Mud-812. That is a significant dropoff. Around 300 points per player. Very interesting.

Looking at the Offensive Numbers

We are generally 2/3's of the way through the season. Seems like we just made it to the halfway point. So I thought I would project my current bat numbers through the entire season. They were pretty dismal. The highest projection was 1183 (Hanley). I didn't even break the 1200 barrier!

So if we say 1100 is a good year and 1200 is a great year, where would that leave us as far as the the averages in the Friday posts? Nice question. The answer is coming up. I really thought that averaging 1100 points on your entire nine playable positions for a season would be hard to do. But it doesn't appear that way. The actual number would be 6.7. Right now 4 out of the top 5 qualify (I am the lone failure).

So what about 1200? That is a little harder. 7.4. Obviously a bit out of our range. If we project Mudville's lineup (6.97) for the year (he is the highest) it comes to 1129. Not too shabby. If you project mine (6.61) it comes to 1070. So Mud is projected to beat me by 531 points for the season.

Friday the Third! (spooky music)

It's cranky Friday. So sit down and shutup.

		Team	Points	Bats	Slot	Arms	Start	Week
1.		Mudville Nine	15130	7725	6.97	7405	25.08	688
2.		EVIL EMPIRE	14982	7707	6.96	7275	24.64	938
3.		Sonic Death M	14974	7466	6.74	7508	25.43	824
4.		Wizzard of Ozz	14947	7567	6.83	7380	25.00	927
5.		The Congregati	14915	7323	6.61	7592	25.71	941
6.		Bru Cru	14464	7397	6.68	7067	23.93	695
7.		Banana Slugs	14174	6572	5.93	7602	25.75	637
8.		Florida Pirates	13921	7354	6.64	6567	22.24	815
9.		Little Leaguer	13921	7216	6.51	6705	22.71	692
10.		Mac & Zack A	13340	7038	6.35	6302	21.34	645
11.		Columbus Mad	12861	6563	5.92	6298	21.33	667
12.		Rosies Angels	12626	6458	5.83	6168	20.89	841

Mud finally stumbled. The league rejoices. (and although reports to the contrary, I did NOT put that banana peel on the track). This basically just squashed the upper five teams. The first five are almost within 200 points. It is a testament to Mudville's success so far that he can have a horrible week and still maintain a 150 point lead.

As far as position, Sonic and Evil swapped positions as well as Little Leaguer and Florida Pirates. The top is getting tight. Still anyone's ballgame.

The bats number acted normal for once. Some up, some down. It looks like 7 is the pinnacle. Like a .400 batting average. Hard to do. Of course if I had played ball it would have been pretty easy (joke). Do something for me, next time you go into a batting cage try a new grip. Slide your top hand (right hand for right handed batters) up about 8 to 10 inches. Hold it like that in your stance and as you swing let it slide down to your other hand. I haven't tried this in a batting cage but it sure feels like you have a lot more control and can generate more batspeed initially. I was just swinging a bat when I tried it. Just remember when guys are making 100's of millions of dollars using this technique, you heard it here first.

The arms number acted normal as well. Ozzie jumped .19. I guess the big news is Mud dropping .49. Banana also dropped .40 but he was so high it still didn't knock him out of the lead.

All in all a good week. Mud got bogged down. The upper teams got a little closer. The bats and arms numbers looked good. And Bonds went down with a career ending injury.

Well almost a good week.