Week 12: When Sabermetrics Win

Michael got to hang out with lions in Zambia, plenty more Africa photos to come

TOTAL			HITTING				PITCHING						Manager		Team
1	Arthur	4.14	1	Arthur	3.13	1		Dave	2.33			Max		My Story Begins
2	Dean	4.43	2	Dean	3.50	2		Michael	4.17			Dean		Ender's Game
3	Brian/Josh	4.64	3	Brian/Josh	3.63	3		Matt	4.33			Arthur		DOMINATION
4	Dave	5.00	4	Keith	5.50	4		Arthur	5.50			Paul		South Florida Gators
5	Michael	5.36	5	Paul	6.00	5		Dean	5.67			Dave		I Hate Fantasy
6	Matt	5.57	6	Max	6.25	6		Keith	6.00			Cory		Hebrew Nationals
7	Keith	5.71	7	Michael	6.25	7		Brian/Josh	6.00			Keith		Bourbon Street Blues
8	Max	6.21	8	Matt	6.50	8		Max	6.17			Brian/Josh		Alternative Stats
9	Cory	6.50	9	Cory	6.75	9		Cory	6.17			Matt		615 for the win
10	Paul	6.79	10	Dave	7.00	10		Paul	7.83			Michael		Pic'em Pelham'ed

Power Rankings Update: BJ's rise halted, Dean stopped his fall, Keith's floor is falling out.

We’ll keep the blog into short this week, my time in Africa left me a ton to catch up on this week and that was BEFORE I found my house was flooded while I was gone. The topic is simple, yet highly debatable and always evolving: Sabermetrics.

I bought my dad a book for Father’s Day: Smart Baseball by Keith Law. Law was a scout in Toronto Blue Jays organization and now heads ESPN’s baseball scouting and assists in their analytics department. The book is about the problems with stats like pitcher wins and saves, and batting average and runs batted in. These stats don’t mean a whole lot because, I mean, cmon, how does a pitcher get his team enough runs to win the game? How does a hitter get credit for people getting on base in front of him? Etc. I watched my dad agonize for two weeks about pitcher adds, Kyle Schwarber drops, and Masahiro Tanaka starts. Yes, I said agonize. I introduced him to the world of fangraphs. Using fangraphs I showed him why Masahiro Tanaka is still going to be a better bet than any pitcher he would grab on the Free Agent wire leading to him saying things like ‘but this guy just threw a shut out!’ or something like that. The reason why is sabermetrics, despite Tanaka’s 6.34 ERA before his start last week, he was sporting a Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) far closer to 5.00 (still bad, but not 6.34 bad) and his strikeout rate was over 9 per game, a very good number. When you compare these numbers to those of pitchers on the Free Agent wire that ‘just threw a shutout’ or something like that and you see ERA/FIP splits like Rich Hill’s 4.73/5.19 or Joe Kelly’s 1.10/3.04. These splits indicate that they have been varying levels of lucky so far which is bound to correct itself sooner or later (but damn, a 1.10 for Kelly?). These pitchers also don’t have the very recent and extended track record of success that Tanaka does. Paul pitched Tanaka last week and it worked, 8 shutout innings. Of course we have no idea if Tanaka will continue his bounce back for the rest of the season, but I’d bet on him more than anyone on Free Agency.

I bring this up because over the long run, Sabermetrics are going to win. Ervin Santana, Mike Leake, and Mark Reynolds previously discussed in the blog have all come back to earth lately…the next shoe I expect to drop is Jason Vargas, Kansas City leading the majors with 11 Wins and is carrying a 2.29 ERA….yet a 3.45 FIP. We’re at Santana and Leake levels of ERA/FIP disparity circa mid May.

Arthur beat Cory to take sole possession of first place back both in the power rankings and standings. Arthur had a solid hitting week with 89 Runs plus RBIs while hitting .295, but his pitching left much to be desired with a 5.9 ERA. It was too much for Cory who couldn’t get much going across the board.

Matt edged Michael by 1 hit and .002 batting average points in a week that both teams had plenty to be happy about. Team 615 for the win is really surging right now behind the bats of Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton who has become a totally different player this year sporting a .274 average and dropping his strikeout rate significantly. Michael’s pitching continued to impress as he leads the league in ERA, 2^nd in ER, yet still 4^th in Ks, a tough feat; but the offense is a performance gap right now for him.

Brian and Josh beat a hobbling Keith as their 2 week run up the power rankings came to an end. It was a solid offensive week for BJ but they really cooled off over the weekend to make the overall numbers kinda eh in the end. BJ put up probably the best offensive day I’ve seen in the league: 14R/22H/7HR/14RBI/4K on Tuesday. They only had 20 RBIs the rest of the week. As far as Keith goes, oh Keith. We’ll save Keith’s discussion for later.

Dean beat Dave in a tight matchup. Both teams had over 85 Runs+RBIs, 13HRs, a 270 Average and good pitching numbers. Dean edged out Dave in just enough categories to get the win, but these two teams are very even right now. Dean’s hitting has cooled down slightly from his run to the top of the power rankings, but his pitching has really faltered as he is swapping out starters trying to find something that works. Time will tell. Dave streamed extensively here but it was his full time pitchers that performed well.

Max made a late-Sunday comeback bid to beat Paul 7 to 6. Max had a good week while Paul’s hitting just couldn’t get much going. Paul left his pitchers on the bench on Sunday while Max streamed to perfection to tie up pitching Ks.

Monster of the Week: I’m giving this to Matt this week as a Monster trending alert. Matt is learning what’s up in Floored. He came in with a disadvantage to the rest of us this year but a few pickups are really working out for him, not the least being Michael’s dropped players Cody Bellinger, Brandon Phillips, and Josh Harrison…sigh. Keep it up, Matt.

Max of the Week: We have a two-fer here. Max and Dean made a trade last week. Max is officially mailing it in, trying to find some keepers. The good news is he has plenty of assets to sell. More good news is he traded with Dean who was too busy speaking at his Business School graduation from Northwestern and planning a trip to Ecuador to research the keeper values of the players involved in the trade. Yes, Dean traded away an incredibly valuable 2-years-left keeper, Daniel Murphy, for a 12 week rental, Anthony Rizzo. Well Played….NOT TO BE OUTDONE though, Keith, what are you doing lately, sir? Keith is currently rostering 4 DL players, one replacement level SP on Paternity Leave, and Matt Holliday who hasn’t played in two days, and this is AFTER he dropped two DL players last week and Cam Bedrosian got activated from the DL. I get it, injuries happen, but there was no excuse for holding on some of these guys like Bedrosian and Peacock and Cozart while they are injured when you already have 3 or 4 other DL guys. This league is too competitive and even right now to hold guys. Keith has fallen to 8^th in the standings.