Here’s the article, check it out:

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/07/11/war-what-is-it-good-for-picking-all-stars/

• Draft Tips from the Hardball Cooperative: great advice here and here’s a prime quote, that’s totally in line with the DraftMVP Draft Tool’s philosophy:
  • “Finally, remember that you aren’t really drafting players…you are drafting statistics. Specifically, you are drafting the numbers you think the players will put up this season. There is no such thing as a “must have” player. If a player you targeted gets selected by another owner, then your draft prep should allow you to quickly find a way to replace those numbers. To do this, I like to look back at the results from the previous season. I find the totals that won the various categories the year before and use these as my benchmarks. When I draft I keep running totals of these predicted numbers, to see how close I am to those benchmarks. This helps me draft a balanced team but it also quickly identifies stats I need to target in trades/free agent pick-ups. Quick example: if I draft Ryan Braun, Evan Longoria, and Robinson Cano in the first three rounds, I have a pretty good start on HR and RBI. Grabbing a power bat with my 4th pick would be redundant.”
• Some good observations of ongoing drafts from the RotoAce
• Sites and tools for Fantasy Baseball from the Fanhouse
• The last minute cheat sheet from Covers.com

A snippet from the summary of the report:

There is a long standing debate over how to objectively compare the career achievements of professional athletes from different historical eras. Developing an objective approach will be of particular importance over the next decade as Major League Baseball (MLB) players from the “steroids era” become eligible for Hall of Fame induction. Here we address this issue, as well as the general problem of comparing statistics from distinct eras, by detrending the seasonal statistics of professional baseball players. We detrend player statistics by normalizing achievements to seasonal averages, which accounts for changes in relative player ability resulting from both exogenous and endogenous factors, such as talent dilution from expansion, equipment and training improvements, as well as performance enhancing drugs (PED). In this paper we compare the probability density function (pdf) of detrended career statistics to the pdf of raw career statistics for five statistical categories — hits (H), home runs (HR), runs batted in (RBI), wins (W) and strikeouts (K) — over the 90-year period 1920-2009. We find that the functional form of these pdfs are stationary under detrending. This stationarity implies that the statistical regularity observed in the right-skewed distributions for longevity and success in professional baseball arises from both the wide range of intrinsic talent among athletes and the underlying nature of competition. Using this simple detrending technique, we examine the top 50 all-time careers for H, HR, RBI, W and K. We fit the pdfs for career success by the Gamma distribution in order to calculate objective benchmarks based on extreme statistics which can be used for the identification of extraordinary careers.

A few years ago, a sports writer attempted to compete in the league and chronicled his experience in a book,  which he called “Fantasyland”. Now, his story has been turned into a movie, which we’re pleased to share with you here.

In any case, we couldn’t help but pass along this awesome piece from the Hardball Times that analyzes how fast a fastball should be:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/how-fast-should-a-fastball-be/

As a preview, check out one of the excellent charts the post includes, highlighting pitch speed effectiveness (measured in Runs per 100 pitches) by section of the strike zone. Awesome awesome stuff.

I mentioned Bill James again … you know that he said he could throw 10 wildly unconventional ideas at me right off the top of his head, but he only actually mentioned one: The off-the-wall idea that maybe some team (say the Pittsburgh Pirates) simply decides that they will stop scouting and acquiring anyone who throws 90-plus mph. Just stop. You throw 95? Good for you, we’re not interested.

I will repeat: Bill wasn’t saying a team should actually do this. He was saying that a team COULD do this, though. I mean, seriously, what would happen? Let’s run a little thought experiment: You’re running the Pirates. And let’s say this was true:

50% of all potential big league pitchers who throw 95 mph will be good big league pitchers.

2% of all potential big league pitchers who throw 83 mph will be good big league pitchers.

I’m sure those percentages are way skewed — no way that half the 95-mph throwers are good big league pitchers, and I have no way of knowing about the 2%. But you can fill in any number you want … the point is we say there are 100 potential pitchers who throw 95, and in this scenario 50 of them will be good pitchers. OK, well, you’re the Pittsburgh Pirates. How many of those 50 do you think you’re going to get? You are competing against 29 other teams that also want guys who can light up the radar gun. The vast majority of those 29 teams have more resources than you do, more scouts poking and prodding those prospects, more money to sign them, more clout to draw them in, more status among players and their families and their agents.

So — my guess? You’re not getting any of those 50. Zero. Oh, you might get some of the 95-mph throwers who WILL NOT be good big league pitchers. And, sure, there’s a chance you could luck into one. But it would take luck. Best bet: A big fat zero.

No, look at the other side. There is much larger pool of pitchers to pick from who top out at 83 mph, or 81 or whatever. Say there are 500 of those. By this formula, 2 percent of them could pitch effectively in the big leagues — that would be 10 pitchers (maybe you don’t believe ANY of them will be good … we’ll get to that in a second). Now, you’re the Pittsburgh Pirates — what are the chances you would get any of those 10?

Well, again, I’m guessing here: But my feeling is that if you have decided to just stop looking at the 95 mph guys and focused ALL YOUR ENERGIES on these slow-throwing guys, well, I think the chances are pretty good that you would get some, most or even all of those 10 pitchers. Why? Because, generally speaking, other teams are not investing much effort in scouting people who top out at 83. They are not scouting those players, they are not making much effort sign those players, they’re not spending draft picks on those players. They simply do not VALUE those players. if you focus all of your effort on it — and you believe in what you’re doing — you will probably figure out which of those slow-throwers has the command, quirkiness, control or movement necessary to get big leaguers out. And if you choose to value command and quirkiness and control and utterly devalue the radar gun, you should be able to corner that market.

Now, there would be people who would say this is a pointless market to corner — that 83 mph pitchers is a dry well. Maybe that’s true. But MAYBE it’s not true. Maybe you can find a cool study that suggests an 83-mph fastball down and away is just as effective a pitch as an 94-mph fastball down and away. Maybe you can point to a collection of ineffective pitchers who can throw really hard (Exhibit A: The Kansas City Royals bullpen) and conclude that speed isn’t all that compelling when it comes to getting out big league hitters. Maybe you would do the math and find that the best slow-throwers would make a better staff than one filled with bottom-third hard-throwers.

Maybe. Look, this is only one idea, and nobody (and especially not Bill) is saying it’s a great idea. But what the heck, it COULD work. And if over the last decade you are the Pirates, the Royals, the Nationals, the Reds, the Orioles … what has worked for you?

What’s important about this is the idea that teams could adopt different strategies in order to change their future, but they often don’t. The same logic applies to fantasy baseball: in thinking about your draft strategies this year, it’s worthwhile to take the time to evaluate what your “normal” strategy is and to identify ways in which you can change it. Of course, we’ve got some ideas for you – our Draft Tool is the perfect way to kick your ass into a new way of thinking about your draft! Try it out for free here

With all of the attention paid to Performance Enhancing Drugs like HGH and Steroids, sometimes we forget the other things that athletes do, medically, in order to add or regain performance. DraftMVP friend, Apurva Desai, writes another intriguing blog post about:

Performance Enhancing Surgeries

From Tommy John surgery to Lasik, athletes go under the knife often, with the hopes of regaining or enhancing their capabilities. Apurva’s post does a great job of digging into this topic and comes up with some interesting facts, go check it out!

Recently, our friends at Zentact blogged about how one of their users was using Zentact to keep tabs on all of the owners and players in his league. Head on over there and take a read of the blog post, it’s well worth it. If any of you decide to use it yourself, be sure to let us know how it works out for you!

If you look at our site and think “arghh, can you work on these colors?” or have ideas on how to make our User Experience smoother and more intuitive, PLEASE let us know. If you know people who might be able to help us out and are into sports, be sure to refer them on to us as well.

What we’re looking for:

• A developer with experience in HTML, PHP and/or Flex.
• General graphic design skills.
• Someone with drive and a need to take responsibility for projects and to push them forward

We’re open to bringing people on board full-time or part-time. Our team is small and we’re all working on other things, but we need team members who will be equally focused on pushing this forward.

If that sounds like you or anyone we know, let us know! Just email Cyrus or leave a comment here or ping us on Twitter

Thanks!

The DraftMVP team (Cyrus, Dion, Jason and Robi)