Fantasy Baseball

I am really loving this. You two are debating MLB with your projected outcomes in the Fantasy baseball thread.

Originally posted by quackquack
Your predictions would be more accurate, interesting and convincing if you looked at the quality of players on the team. For example, I too picked the Twins for second place even though the Twins are actually spending more money than ever (perhaps you saw the Joe Mauer contract and the new stadium) but with Morneau coming off an injury and Nathan out for illy was too small a market to ever compete. There are just no principles in your arguements.

My picks are the highest pay roll teams in each division. Let my points be proven at the end of the year instead of such continuous babble. I plan to revisit my predictions and I hope you will join me. 😀

Of course, there are other confounding factors that may screw up my predictoins such as well run organizations verses poorly run, as I have pointed out. Despite this fact, I predict such discrepencies will have little effect on the accuracy of my predictions. It may throw off a few division winners, but by in large the majority I think will be correct. Wiinning today in MLB is just about throwing money around and it bores me to tears. 😴

Originally posted by whodey
My picks are the highest pay roll teams in each division. Let my points be proven at the end of the year instead of such continuous babble. I plan to revisit my predictions and I hope you will join me. 😀

Of course, there are other confounding factors that may screw up my predictoins such as well run organizations verses poorly run, as I have pointed ou ...[text shortened]... orrect. Wiinning today in MLB is just about throwing money around and it bores me to tears. 😴

If you don't like baseball then stop posting and don't watch.

Originally posted by quackquack
If you don't like baseball then stop posting and don't watch.

Nope. I love the game but hate what MLB has done to it. I feel the same way about the politics of my country. I'm just part of the silent majority unrepresented and trodden under foot. The problem is I don't like to be silent. 😠

The NYT printed 2010 payroll numbers and I thought I was interesting that some of your low budget teams really are high budget teams. For example, Minnesota's average salary is 3.484M while the Angels is 3.621M and the Dodgers is 3.651M. If you include taxes and cost of living i think the Twins are paying more than either LA team.

As for your only the big spenders have a chance... Last year St. Louis has the 13th highest payroll (2nd in the division); Minnesota has the third highest in the division; Colorado has the 16th highest overall (3rd highest in their division) all made the playoffs. Six of the ten top spenders in 2010 (Cubs, Mets, Tigers, White Sox, Mariners and Giants) are teams that did not make they playoffs in 2009.

Originally posted by quackquack
The NYT printed 2010 payroll numbers and I thought I was interesting that some of your low budget teams really are high budget teams. For example, Minnesota's average salary is 3.484M while the Angels is 3.621M and the Dodgers is 3.651M. If you include taxes and cost of living i think the Twins are paying more than either LA team.

As for your only ...[text shortened]... ets, Tigers, White Sox, Mariners and Giants) are teams that did not make they playoffs in 2009.

As I said, if you split the teams down the middle in MLB you have about 5 or 6 in the highest of pay rolls not have a winning season. Conversely, if you take the bottom pay roll teams you have about 5 or 6 teams with a winning season. They are mirror images of each other.

Originally posted by whodey
As I said, if you split the teams down the middle in MLB you have about 5 or 6 in the highest of pay rolls not have a winning season. Conversely, if you take the bottom pay roll teams you have about 5 or 6 teams with a winning season. They are mirror images of each other.

Six of the top 10 payrolls did not make the playoffs. The Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies spend a lot of money and have real good teams (they also have real good fans and real good homegrown talent on their roster in addition to free agent signings) but the Mets and Cubs spends a lot and don't. Your claim that it's all about money just isn't true.

Originally posted by quackquack
Six of the top 10 payrolls did not make the playoffs. The Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies spend a lot of money and have real good teams (they also have real good fans and real good homegrown talent on their roster in addition to free agent signings) but the Mets and Cubs spends a lot and don't. Your claim that it's all about money just isn't true.

Its not about buying a playoff birth, its about buying a winning season to position yourself to get into the playoffs. The cut off line seems to be around $100 million in pay roll to buy a winning season.

Originally posted by whodey
My picks are the highest pay roll teams in each division. Let my points be proven at the end of the year instead of such continuous babble. I plan to revisit my predictions and I hope you will join me. 😀

Of course, there are other confounding factors that may screw up my predictoins such as well run organizations verses poorly run, as I have pointed ou ...[text shortened]... orrect. Wiinning today in MLB is just about throwing money around and it bores me to tears. 😴

I will route very strongly for Cincinnati this season 😀

I do agree that teams with high payrolls do have a certain advantage over the really low payroll teams.

I have an idea for a solution that doesn't involve salary caps or other things that the players union would be very slow to accept.

When they have the draft, when they do the usual reverse order picks every year, give the team with the worst record the first three picks, the next worst team gets the next three picks, and so on.

This would mean that all of the really hot draft picks will become heavily concentrated in the farm systems of the bad teams - while the really good teams would be left with barren farm systems.

Franchises in small markets that can't afford to sign free agents might have a few lousy seasons in a row, but this would allow them to stock up on loads of big time prospects who will allow that franchise to have some really good teams filled with young phenoms all making minimum salaries.

This would also be beneficial for the young players because they'd be less likely to be stuck in a farm system of a good team that doesn't have much playing time available for them. They'd get a chance to play as soon as they're ready and wouldn't waste one or two years off their MLB careers sitting in the minors.

Originally posted by Melanerpes
I do agree that teams with high payrolls do have a certain advantage over the really low payroll teams.

I have an idea for a solution that doesn't involve salary caps or other things that the players union would be very slow to accept.

When they have the draft, when they do the usual reverse order picks every year, give the team with the worst reco ...[text shortened]... re ready and wouldn't waste one or two years off their MLB careers sitting in the minors.

This is the same illogical redistribution garbage we get on the front page on the newspaper. Getting the first pick simply for being incomepetent is enough disensentive for being good. This isn't little league for five year olds where everyone gets to bat and everyone gets a trophy. If you don't want to spend like the Yankees or the Red Sox or build a farm team with great players like Tampa Bay and you are in the AL East then you are simply not going to win as often. Revenue sharing, luxury tax, national TV contracts, internet sales are all shared.
Baseball is the most equal balance sport by winning percentage. Why not give the teams the first twelve picks or first seventy two picks? In 164 basketball games this year the two New York teams combine for 41 wins? Do you avocate giving the Nets John Wall, Evan Turner and DeMarcus Cousins and the Knicks Derrick Favors, Wesley Johnson and Ed Davis? Why is baseball held to different and foolish standard?

Originally posted by quackquack
This is the same illogical redistribution garbage we get on the front page on the newspaper. Getting the first pick simply for being incomepetent is enough disensentive for being good. This isn't little league for five year olds where everyone gets to bat and everyone gets a trophy. If you don't want to spend like the Yankees or the Red Sox or build a ...[text shortened]... Favors, Wesley Johnson and Ed Davis? Why is baseball held to different and foolish standard?

actually, I would definitely extend my idea to basketball as well - actually basketball might be the first place to try it since its almost impossible for a bad team to become good (or vice versa) within a short period of time.

obviously, since basketball has smaller rosters, and draft picks have a more immediate impact, I wouldn't use the same "bloc of three" picks approach. Maybe something like this: in the first round:

use the NBA's current lottery system to choose two teams to make the first two selections in the draft.

then give all of the 14 non-playoff teams picks 3 thru 16, then have each of those teams pick again for 17 thru 30, so each of those teams would be guaranteed two players from the first round (and the two lucky lottery teams would each have three first round picks). No team making the playoffs would be eligible for a first round pick.

Originally posted by quackquack
This is the same illogical redistribution garbage we get on the front page on the newspaper. Getting the first pick simply for being incomepetent is enough disensentive for being good. This isn't little league for five year olds where everyone gets to bat and everyone gets a trophy. If you don't want to spend like the Yankees or the Red Sox or build a ...[text shortened]... Favors, Wesley Johnson and Ed Davis? Why is baseball held to different and foolish standard?

Don't worry. It wouldn't turn into trophies for everyone. Even if my proposal was implemented, I doubt it would have more than a moderate effect on helping the smaller market franchises.

My proposal probably wouldn't do much to help the truly incompetent organizations. They'd still make lousy draft picks, or terrible trades or inadvisable free agent signings or all of the other things that make lousy organizations lousy. And the draft doesn't cover players from outside the US. So the good organizations would still be able to sign players from Latin America and Japan as they do currently.

But it would give an extra boost to those teams that sincerely wish to employ a strategy that focuses on building up the farm system and developing young players.

I actually think #1 draft picks make a huge difference and there is no reason to give a huge advantage to teams for playing poorly.
Furthermore, it certainly is not good for a sport to have the the most talented youngsters to go to the most incompetent organization (if indeed that is why teams like the Pirates stink each year). Other sports like college football, college basketball, the NBA have teams tank for years just to get good draft picks. Baseball has more competive balance that the NBA (when are the Clippers better than the Lakers) or NFL (when are the Lions better than the Colts) but routinely a team can win 85% percent of their games in those sports and no onw complains. I believe your proposal would just make the sport worse and people should just stop crying that some teams and fan bases which invest in their product are getting reasonable returns.

Originally posted by Melanerpes
Don't worry. It wouldn't turn into trophies for everyone. Even if my proposal was implemented, I doubt it would have more than a moderate effect on helping the smaller market franchises.

My proposal probably wouldn't do much to help the truly incompetent organizations. They'd still make lousy draft picks, or terrible trades or inadvisable free agent s ...[text shortened]... employ a strategy that focuses on building up the farm system and developing young players.

There seems to have been a change since the last baseball strike in the mid 1990's. MLB seems to have caved to the union so that the players are now in the drivers seat. This means that if you are good enough, you too can become a Yankee.

There is no way around the fact that "big market" teams consistantly outperform "small market teams". As I have shown, the majority of teams with winning seasons last year spent around $100 million or more. In fact, only about 6 had a losing season. Converesly, those that were under that mark only managed to produce about 6 teams with a winning season. In fact, the last small market team to win a world series were the Marlins in the 1990's. They will probably be the last.

From my perspective, what needs to happen are salary caps for teams. But then, who has an incentive to do this? The players are happy because there is no limit to how much they can make. If they are good enough, they too can be a Yankee. The baseball owners are happy because they will find a way to make money either way. MLB is happy because the owners and unions are happy and won't give them grief. The media is happy because the big market teams usually wind up in the play offs giving them great ratings. So the only people that are unhappy are the few small market fans left. So who cares about them?