It would be an understatement to say that I've struggled with drafting competent closers in the CardRunners Experts League (a fact that Eric has little problem reminding me of on a semi-regular basis).  Last year, I drafted Frank Francisco, who lost his job two weeks into the season and, despite being one of the top non-closers in the game the rest of the way, never reclaimed the role.  This year, I drafted Matt Thornton and Francisco again.  Thornton was arguably the best non-closer in baseball before finally getting a crack at closing this year, but he had a rough (arguably unlucky) start to the season and lost the job in April as well.  Francisco managed to get injured after our draft and finally took the role back a couple weeks ago, but after a rough few days may be on thin ice again.

Given my storied unsuccess drafting closers, Eric suggested that I run some studies on closers and examine just what kind of return on investment one can expect from a closer.  Over the next few weeks, I'll be digging into the data and answering a number of questions about closers that should prove extremely useful for both myself in figuring out where I keep going wrong and for the population at large in their own closer decisions.

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I completed my first trade of the season a couple days ago with the team of Chris Hill and Nick Cassavetes. (more…)

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Yesterday, Chris Liss penned a post at RotoWire's RotoSynthesis blog that mentioned my luck, randomness, and Dan Haren article.  This stemmed a little debate in the comments section, which I wanted to respond to here since I'm incapable of writing up a succinct response that's appropriate for a comments section.

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There's an interesting conversation going on in the comments section of my post from Wednesday (far more interesting than the post itself), and my would-be-responses were very long, so I turned them into articles over at THT:

Do we use luck and randomness as a crutch?

How much do counts affect BABIP?

I thought I'd point them out for those interested.

I hate you.

Love,
Me

I felt very left out when Eric failed to include me in his post on the remaining contenders yesterday.  Granted, I'm in 8th place right now, but I'm not going to make excuses. (more…)

In continuing to introduce myself around, I figured I'd share my feelings on where I fall on the genius/agnostic spectrum.

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The on-going debate between Chris Liss, Eric Kesselman, and Bill Phipps is a terrific one that makes me very happy I was invited to participate in the CardRunners league this year.  These are the kind of theoretical discussions that I love to have, and I feel like it’s being framed and discussed much more intelligently here than it often is among baseball bloggers.

Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to jump in, introduce myself, and give you a feeling for who I am and what my thoughts are about fantasy baseball.

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