Comments on: cough couch hack hack

By: sdedalus

sdedalus — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 08:09:46 +0000

Congrats, Sean, if thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s really you; your team was really really awful! And your team name, Super Karate Monkey Death Car, is the best IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve ever seen.

Thanks, it really is me. I use that name for all kinds of things, it’s always appropriate. Newsradio = the Arrested Development of the 90s.

I got an email today from BP telling me my photo had been delayed but is now ready to be sent, so that’s cool. I don’t think any home is truly complete until it’s got an autographed picture of Bud Selig on the wall.

By: G-Man

G-Man — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:59:54 +0000

The deadline to enter is Saturday night. The HM site says “midnight PST”, but I’ll assume they meant PDT.

By: Steve T

Steve T — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:23:02 +0000

Good call on the Royals. I haven’t been paying enough attention to their DL. BP’s Depth Charts are still projecting Mays as a spot starter, 135 innings, behind Greinke, Hernandez, Elarton, Redman, and Affeldt. But Greinke, the only decent one in the bunch, is on the 60-day DL, for “personal reasons”, non-baseball ones (?); Hernandez is in AAA, and Redman’s hurt, too. Yikes. They gotta have a pitcher, right? Mays is now the #2, Affeldt’s #3, Bautista’s #4, Luke Hudson’s #5. What happened to J. P. Howell? I suppose Elmer Dessens could start again. Bobby Madritsch might come back late in the year. Will they break the “fifteen starters” barrier this year? What about the “1,500 Runs Allowed” barrier?

Oh, and their closer’s on the DL too, til mid-May. This team could lose 120 games on paper.

By: igor206

igor206 — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 01:53:21 +0000

Evan, you called my other pitcher. I agree that Mays is even worse than Elarton. Considering the injuries in the Royals rotation I don’t see either of them losing rotation spots all year.

By: Steve T

Steve T — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 01:06:44 +0000

Well, you’ve got til I think Sunday night to lock ‘em in.

By: Arford

Arford — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 00:25:25 +0000

I went with Elarton and Ortiz at P, if only because it doesn’t look like Franklin will make the rotation in Philly. I resisted the lure of Tony Womack and went with the all-Adam dp combo of Everett and Kennedy. My team was actually pretty good last year, except for one glaring mistake – starting at 2B, Brian Roberts. Oops.

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 22:07:04 +0000

On those Royals pitchers. Elarton’s not quite bad enough, but Mays is. And, as the #2, he’s likely to keep his spot. He’d be an even better bet if there was more than one strong offensive team in their division.

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 22:05:47 +0000

Only the immortal Cristian Guzman broke 100 among hitters.

And that’s why you really need to evaluate the team, and the chances that a player will get benched. Olivo would have cleared 100 easily if we’d let him play, but we (like any intelligent team) saw that he was crap and sent him elsewhere. But the Nats kept sending Guzman out there, much as the Royals did with Lima. No one would have predicted that Lima could put up an ERA over 7.00 and keep his spot in the rotation (he LOWERED it to 6.99 in his final start).

By: igor206

igor206 — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:56:52 +0000

I can’t imagine Ortiz keeping a spot in the rotation this year. The three years left on his contract and the sheer visibility of his crappiness will be too much for Arizona to handle. Maybe if he keeps his ERA below 5.25 or so, but I don’t see that happening. Not with an 8.86 spring and guys in the minors to replace him. Elarton is a sure thing though for ESPN superstardom.

By: Steve T

Steve T — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:20:12 +0000

PECOTA says that your best bet for right field is … Ichiro. Keeping in mind the criteria — .800 minus OPS times PA. Ichiro usually leads the league in PA, so even though there are lots and lots of guys who are worse, that multiplier won’t get them up there. Playing time is the secret to Hacking MASS. And pitchers’ parks. But right field is the toughest spot to pick for me; my analysis points to Ryan Freel (who is listed under RF, but his PA count no matter where he plays), but I’ve already got Womack (a Hacking MASS god), and I think they’re going to eat each other’s innings.

Other Mariners: Betancourt’s a possibility, though he’s got a lot of stiff, and I do mean STIFF, competition. Unfortunately, you can’t pick an entire team’s platoon effort, because I think Kansas City’s going to end up with three guys at short whose combined ESPN will be off the charts. I went with Berroa, personally. Bloomquist isn’t going to get enough PA to make it.

First base is another toughie, since Erstad’s back in center. He was always the gimme pick, but now I’m in a conundrum where the guys I want to pick, like Scott Hatteberg, all play in hitters’ parks.

Pitching is such a crapshoot, and I’m just not good at picking them, especially when they change the criteria every year. Last year my offense players beat out all of the Hacking MASS top ten teams, but my pitchers kept me way out of contention. I’m about 50% set on Elarton and Ortiz; I want to pick Milton (and would have won last year or at least been close if I had) but I keep thinking he’s going to pitch himself off the rotation, even for a bad team like the Reds.

The Royals are nothing like the Rockies; the Rocks’ pitchers aren’t DQ’ed because they suck, but because they pitch in Colorado. The Royals just plain suck.

This year’s going to be different again, because they’ve raised the pitcher bar to 4.50 ERA from 4.00. Last year all the big ESPN-gatherers were pitchers. Only the immortal Cristian Guzman broke 100 among hitters. This year there should be a better balance.

Congrats, Sean, if that’s really you; your team was really really awful! And your team name, Super Karate Monkey Death Car, is the best I’ve ever seen. I finished second a bunch of years ago, when it was a Usenet thing, but there are thousands of entries now, so it’s harder. I was 160-something last year, which is in the 90th percentile but so very, very disappointing. Brian Anderson of the Royals really let me down by going down injured and getting Tommy John surgery.