Newsletter for games through 5-27-18

GEM OF THE WEEK!

Blake Snell of the Rays threw a no-hitter against Boston on May 23, first day of the fantasy week.  No walks, no hit batters, and soiled only by the Daniel Robertson error.  He out-dueled David Price and gave a shot in the arm to start the week.  I’m not saying that I, personally, caused this fantasy stardom, but Snell was the starting pitcher when Alan Minsky and I watched the Rays play the Angels a couple of weeks ago…100% of the Ray starting pitchers Alan and I have seen perform in person have now thrown fantasy no-hitters…

COMMENTARY

Big week for the Brewers!  Their 6-1 was best in the NL…ASFBL behemoths Andy Somers’ and Rick Wynne each crept foward at 5-1 and 4-2 respectively…Philly also finished strong and held on to the top spot…the Padres hit a bump but are still at +4 WOR, still tops in the NL…the bottom 3 teams in the NL west all gained ground…the Braves are a scant 1 game out…Arizona maintains its lead on the basis of a strong +3 WOR…The AL was ruled by the Tigers, who broke through at 5-1, have the only winning record in the actual or ASFBL AL central…Oakland continued its impressive season with a winning record, another week in first place, and a +5 WOR…Bosox and Yanks matched pace at 4-2 each…Balitmore still leads everyone in WOR…CWS and Royals are both in positive WOR territory in a wide-open division…Luis Severino of the Brewers is an incredible 10-0…Verlander is 9-2…Sale, Wacha, and Beeks also have lots of wins (8, 7, 6) but not losses…Shohei Ohtani is 6-1 as a pitcher…Hicks (Cards) and Kimbrel (Boston) each have 17 saves…only 14 pitchers have double-digit saves…none more impressive than Morrow of the Cubs, 15 saves in 16.33 innings…has yet to allow an earned run…

HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE

In 1987, in the time before ASFBL, I played in my first fantasy league and spent a semester skimping on coursework to code the first simulation on my room-mate’s computer.  That sim was the earliest predecessor to the ASFBL and all stats were entered by hand from the Sunday paper.  I had managed to draft a team heavy on setup relievers and bad at everything else, and having watched myself fall behind by 3 or more runs before the third inning on a fairly consistent basis I decided I’d just start my short relievers and try to stay in the game as long as I could.   It was a fun thing to try in a simulation but obviously unrealistic.   And, of course, it’s exactly what the Rays are now doing with their real club.

FEATS AND FAILURES

Dansby Swanson of ATL struck out 4 times against PHI on 5/21/2018
MIA and NYM played 14.5 innings on 5/21/2018
SDP and WAS played 14.5 innings on 5/22/2018
David Fletcher of LAA hit for the cycle against TOR on 5/22/2018
Curtis Granderson of TOR struck out 4 times against LAA on 5/22/2018
Derek Dietrich of MIA had 5 hits against NYM on 5/22/2018
Yuli Gurriel of HOU robbed 3 hits against SFG on 5/22/2018
Jake Marisnick of HOU robbed 3 hits against SFG on 5/23/2018
Max Scherzer of WAS had 11 strikeouts against SDP on 5/23/2018
Kyle Freeland of COL had 11 strikeouts against LAD on 5/23/2018
Max Muncy of LAD struck out 4 times against COL on 5/23/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 11 strikeouts against CLE on 5/24/2018
Jackie Bradley of BOS struck out 4 times against TBR on 5/24/2018
Mike Foltynewicz of ATL had 10 strikeouts against BOS on 5/25/2018
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 12 strikeouts against MIL on 5/25/2018
Ross Stripling of LAD had 10 strikeouts against SDP on 5/25/2018
Franchy Cordero of SDP struck out 4 times against LAD on 5/25/2018
Xander Bogaerts of BOS struck out 4 times against ATL on 5/26/2018
Brandon Belt of SFG hit 3 home runs against CHC on 5/26/2018
Brett Gardner of COL struck out 4 times against CIN on 5/27/2018
CIN and COL played 14.5 innings on 5/27/2018
Mike Zunino of SEA struck out 4 times against MIN on 5/27/2018

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Newsletter for games through 5-20-17

COMMENTARY: The Cubs and Padres each posted a 5-1 week to lead the NL…Cardinals took on water but still lead the central by 4 games, and have the only positive WOR in the division…Braves and Phillies finish the week in a dead tie in the NL East….which is a gain for Philly…Al Benedek’s Padres also lead the NL in WOR…Seattle was the only AL team to go 5-1…but everyone in the West is chasing John Weerts’ A’s, the only team in the division with a positive WOR…The Orioles lead everyone with a +8.5 WOR and the Chisox, Tigers, and Royals are all ahead of the actual clubs in the AL central…the Rays were 4-3 but I think lost ground to the actual club, who is on a hot streak…Jose Ramirez has 20 HR to lead everyone…Trout has 19…Bryce Harper has walked 52 times, also a league lead…Andrelton Simmons leads the league with 72 hits, but there are 6 players with over 100 AB who have a better batting average…Mookie Betts is hitting .350 with 177 AB…Adam Ottavino has the lowest ERA for any player with more than 30 IP at 1.17…he pitches for Colorado…Justin Verlander has an ERA of 1.49 in over 96 innings….Brad Hand of the Padres pitched 5 scoreless innings and stranded all 4 runners he inherited…Josh Hader of the Brewers struck out 16 in 6 innings…Jose Abreu hit an ungodly .538 for the Chisox last week…Teoscar Hernandez hit 5 HR last week, which I think led the ASFBL, but Evan Longoria had more RBI with 12…10 trades last week….we have yet to have a single trade that has included a free waiver so far…only 4 teams have exactly the same record as the real club…which might be high, considering all the rainouts…11 teams, or about at third of the league, is within 1 game of the actual club…28 lineups submitted last week…thank you…new owner Alan Minsky has some serious baseball chops I’d like to share; he’s written two books on baseball and this article on Barry Bonds…Alan’s notes: “1. I wrote the piece in sections, but the editor chose to eliminate the section breaks (without changing the language); so if you notice some abrupt shifts in the article, that’s where the section breaks were.  2.  There were loads of comments when it was originally published, but those all disappeared when Truthdig re-designed their website about a year ago.” … and in “reality is unrealistic,” you might have noted that Sergio Romo had appeared in 588 games without a single start, and then started two games on back-to-back days (I saw it unfold in real time, but this link is also courtesy of Alan Minsky)

TECHNICAL TRIBBLES: Something is resetting the “feats and failures” file; I’ll try to figure that out this week…I DO have a list of suggestions; keep them coming…as a general timeline, I’m swamped on another project until about June 23, but my plan is to do the last major changes between then and the end of July…there is a chance some of the games recorded correctly but didn’t save all the individual stats, so please let me know if you see something funny in the box scores…the minimum fee Microsoft charges for Azure is higher than I had anticipated (and not documented anywhere); might be looking for a new web host if that ends up not being a huge headache….

Newsletter for games through 5-15-18

COMMENTARY:

The Phillies!  This week belongs to the Phillies!  They were 7-0 and the only NL team to win more than 4…and the only ASFBL team to win more than 5…Johnny Mac really deserves credit this week..but, they still couldn’t wedge the Braves out of first place, which is a testament to the quality of the team Danny Wildes has put together…the Cards and DBacks are building up impressive leads early in the season…nobody could possibly be as hot as the actual Yankees, with the possible exception of Tony Bernacchi’s ASFBL Bosox, who are winning at a league-leading .731 clip and went 5-1 last week…much like the actual AL Central, nobody has a winning record…but the Tigers and Royals are each up by a couple of games in WOR, and the Tigers have converted that into first place…John Weerts has the ASFBL story in the AL, leading an enormously competitive AL West and sitting 5.5 WOR…which is still not quite as good as Mark Chen’s league-leading +7 WOR…in the “sad but true” category, I have one catcher hitting .159 and another hitting .182…and both are over-performing compared to real life and are due to adjust down…and both have been benched in real-life behind Mesoraco…I forgot to mention the motivation behind my “reality is unrealistic” rant last week…Josh Hader had an 8-out save on April 30th…and all outs were strikeouts.

TECHNICAL TRIBBLES

The “avast” website, which I presume to be an operation of the Pittsburgh Pirates, briefly gave our website a false positive but has since added us to the whitelist…and I re-reset the file where the weekly highs and lows, which has put the “feats and failures” on the disabled list this week.  If you see anything striking, let  me know and I’ll add it to next week’s newsletter.

 

 

 

Newsletter for games through 5-6-2018

WEEKLY APOLOGY

Sorry for the lineup chicanery; I know that some attention to detail goes into them, and I do hereby promise to squash that bug before next week.  I am in a long, painful series of meetings for the next few days and should have time to devote to the task.

REALITY IS UNREALISTIC

Sometimes I just wonder how to make the sim more realistic, or run diagnostics against actual performance, or something…and sometimes I just revel in the fact that there are things you just can’t code for…Dylan Bundy allowed 4 home runs without recording an out, which hasn’t happened in at least 100 years…Four Dodger pitchers combined for a no-hitter…which of course required that a starter pitching a no-hitter got yanked…Clayton Kershaw has an ERA of 2.86 and a record of 1-4…Robert Gsellman is a run higher at 3.92 and is 4-0…he has no starts…and as you probably already know, April 2018 is the only month in major league history where the number of strikeouts exceeds the number of hits…JP Crawford only reached base 3 times in his first 25 trips to the plate (.120 OBP)…and scored 3 times (100%)…

CRYSTAL BALL

Had you decided on April 27 to offer Marcus Strohman, Felix Hernandez or Chris Archer for #62 minor league prospect Jaime Barria, I’m guessing Greg Achten would have said yes.  And you would have dumped a guy with an ERA north of 5.30 for a guy with a 3.46 ERA who threw 5 no-hit innings in his last start.

VICTORY CELEBRATIONS

As the Mets drop like a routine fly ball hit to Justin Upton, the Braves stayed HOT and finished in first after a 5-1 week…and kudos to the Phillies who are keeping it close…that Washington team I predicted would heat up has pulled even with the WOR and was 4-3….Arizona and the Cards (as opposed to the Arizona Cardinals) each had the best record in their division and each is in first place…the best two teams in the AL are Boston and the Yankees…and they are jostling for first place in the ASFBL AL East…and I did list Boston first because Mark Chen aptly gave me crap about giving better press to the Yankees, which puts me on a newsroom WOR equal to the NY press…and hold crap Mark is +8 WOR, which is better than anyone…maybe ever, at this point…Detroit, KC, and the CWS are all above-average WOR…but the Cleveland ship is beginning to turn around, and that division is truly within grasp of everyone…the Rays were 2-4, but the highlight of my day was driving back home from Long Beach to hear Alan Minsky on the radio…Oakland is making the magic work in the AL West…+4 WOR and first place in a really tough division….every AL division race is 2 games or closer…

FEATS AND FAILURES

Trea Turner of WAS struck out 4 times against PIT on 4/30/2018
John Lamb of DET had 12 strikeouts against TBR on 4/30/2018
Austin Romine of NYY struck out 4 times against HOU on 4/30/2018
Kevin Pillar of TOR hit 3 home runs against MIN on 4/30/2018
Kevin Pillar of TOR had 6 RBI against MIN on 4/30/2018
Chris Owings of ARI struck out 4 times against LAD on 4/30/2018
Blake Snell of TBR had 14 strikeouts against DET on 5/1/2018
Kent Emanuel of HOU had 11 strikeouts against NYY on 5/1/2018
Andrelton Simmons of LAA had 5 hits against BAL on 5/1/2018
Kyle Gibson of MIN had 13 strikeouts against TOR on 5/2/2018
Eduardo Escobar of MIN had 5 hits against TOR on 5/2/2018
Sean Newcomb of ATL had 11 strikeouts against NYM on 5/2/2018
Caleb Smith of MIA had 10 strikeouts against PHI on 5/2/2018
Aaron Altherr of PHI struck out 4 times against MIA on 5/2/2018
Garrett Richards of LAA had 10 strikeouts against BAL on 5/2/2018
Gerrit Cole of HOU had 12 strikeouts against NYY on 5/3/2018
Cole Hamels of TEX had 10 strikeouts against BOS on 5/3/2018
Hanley Ramirez of BOS struck out 4 times against TEX on 5/3/2018
Mitch Haniger of SEA struck out 4 times against OAK on 5/3/2018
Domingo German of NYY had 11 strikeouts against CLE on 5/4/2018
Edwin Encarnacion of CLE struck out 4 times against NYY on 5/4/2018
Yoenis Cespedes of NYM struck out 4 times against COL on 5/4/2018
Michael Conforto of NYM struck out 4 times against COL on 5/4/2018
Scooter Gennett of CIN struck out 4 times against MIA on 5/4/2018
Jake Faria of TBR had 14 strikeouts against TOR on 5/4/2018
Chris Sale of BOS had 10 strikeouts against TEX on 5/4/2018
Carlos Martinez of STL had 10 strikeouts against CHC on 5/4/2018
Joey Lucchesi of SDP had 10 strikeouts against LAD on 5/4/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 19 strikeouts against ARI on 5/4/2018
David Peralta of ARI struck out 4 times against HOU on 5/4/2018
Dylan Cozens of PHI struck out 4 times against WAS on 5/5/2018
Chris Archer of TBR had 11 strikeouts against TOR on 5/5/2018
Matt Kemp of LAD had 5 hits against SDP on 5/5/2018
David Hess of BAL had 11 strikeouts against OAK on 5/5/2018
Trayce Thompson of OAK struck out 4 times against BAL on 5/5/2018
LAA and SEA played 14.5 innings on 5/5/2018
Luis Severino of NYY had 11 strikeouts against CLE on 5/6/2018
Edwin Encarnacion of CLE struck out 4 times against NYY on 5/6/2018
Jon Gray of COL had 11 strikeouts against NYM on 5/6/2018
Yoenis Cespedes of NYM had 5 hits against COL on 5/6/2018
Todd Frazier of NYM struck out 4 times against COL on 5/6/2018
Blake Snell of TBR had 15 strikeouts against TOR on 5/6/2018
Trea Turner of WAS struck out 4 times against PHI on 5/6/2018
Dylan Cozens of PHI struck out 6 times against WAS on 5/6/2018
PHI and WAS played 14.5 innings on 5/6/2018
Julio Teheran of ATL had 10 strikeouts against SFG on 5/6/2018
Trevor Cahill of OAK had 12 strikeouts against BAL on 5/6/2018
LAA and SEA played 13.5 innings on 5/6/2018

Newsletter for games through 4-29

TECHNICAL TRIBBLES

Waiver claims are processed for the first time this week, so let me know if you see anything amiss…the new server is forever in the central time zone, so the deadline warning will process on Chicago time; I am incredibly unlikely to run the games at 11pm Pacific time, so be assured you can enter your lineup before you go to bed Tuesday…traded players should now automatically go to the inactive roster…the last bug with the drag-and-drop sorting should be exterminated by next week…I have now found what’s causing the problem, which often takes me much longer than fixing it…I believe that traded and demoted players are now removed from starting rotations and lineups, but for the next few weeks I’ll ask you to double-check if you have a chance…

COMMENTARY

There are still 8 pitchers who have thrown more than 10 innings but not yet allowed a run…none of them has more than 1 win…of course, none of them has any losses, either…Following the first month in baseball history where there were more strikeouts than hits, Gerrit Cole leads the ASFBL with 99…But isn’t it more fun to focus on the 47 whiffs Miguel Sano has to lead our league?  Since he’s going on the DL, Matt Olson of Oakland can catch up; he’s got 45…so does Carlos Gomez of the Rays…the top 16 most-struck–out batters are all from different teams…three fantasy hitters are chasing .400, but none have more than 40 AB…a gripload of players have more than 100, with Jose Altuve (134) leading the way…Much like in real-life, the Nationals are in the bottom of the pack in the NL East…much as in real-life, the rest of the division is waiting for them to wake up…and they had the only winning record in the division last week…Braves still held first and gained ground on the Mets and Phillies…Cardinals are in first place on the strength of a +3 WOR…Reds are also ahead of the real club, who is only playing .250 ball…Padres (who swept the Mets this week) are making serious noise in the NL west, 4 games back of the DBacks but +5 WOR…Al Benedek is really getting them together…Yankees rule the AL east and were 6-1 last week, but the Orioles have the +5 WOR and and the Bosox look hard to shake…the torrid pace of the actual Rays has pushed newcomer Alan Minsky below the positive WOR territory, but as the actual stats starts to warm up so should the fantasy performance…Three teams are within a game of first in the AL Central, including the Royals at +5.5 WOR…Chisox gained the most ground with a 5-2 effort…Oakland and Anaheim are surging ahead of their actual clubs, and thanks to the 5-1 week John Weerts’ Athletics find themselves in first place…no word on whether he’s offering a free admission day to the fantasy fans any time soon…

FEATS AND FAILURES

German Marquez of BAL had 12 strikeouts against CLE on 4/23/2018
Gerrit Cole of HOU had 12 strikeouts against LAA on 4/23/2018
Aaron Judge of NYY robbed 3 hits against MIN on 4/24/2018
Chris Sale of BOS had 10 strikeouts against TOR on 4/24/2018
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 11 strikeouts against STL on 4/24/2018
Enrique Hernandez of LAD struck out 4 times against MIA on 4/24/2018
MIA and LAD played 14.5 innings on 4/24/2018
Ryon Healy of SEA struck out 4 times against CWS on 4/25/2018
Dansby Swanson of ATL struck out 4 times against CIN on 4/25/2018
Preston Tucker of ATL had 5 hits against CIN on 4/25/2018
Anthony Santander of BAL struck out 4 times against TBR on 4/25/2018
Jorge Soler of KCR struck out 4 times against MIL on 4/25/2018
Yan Gomes of CLE struck out 4 times against SEA on 4/26/2018
Blake Snell of TBR had 13 strikeouts against BAL on 4/26/2018
Aaron Altherr of PHI struck out 4 times against ATL on 4/27/2018
Billy Hamilton of CIN struck out 4 times against MIN on 4/27/2018
Danny Valencia of BAL hit 3 home runs against DET on 4/28/2018
Gerrit Cole of HOU had 16 strikeouts against OAK on 4/28/2018
Matt Chapman of OAK struck out 4 times against HOU on 4/28/2018
Chris Sale of BOS had 11 strikeouts against TBR on 4/29/2018
Carlos Martinez of STL had 11 strikeouts against PIT on 4/29/2018
STL and PIT played 13.5 innings on 4/29/2018
Devin Mesoraco of CIN had 6 RBI against MIN on 4/29/2018
Joey Votto of CIN hit 3 home runs against MIN on 4/29/2018
Joey Votto of CIN had 5 hits against MIN on 4/29/2018
Justin Verlander of HOU had 17 strikeouts against OAK on 4/29/2018
Trayce Thompson of OAK struck out 4 times against HOU on 4/29/2018
Orlando Arcia of MIL robbed 3 hits against CHC on 4/29/2018
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 14 strikeouts against SDP on 4/29/2018