RSOB Chapter 9: Tying Up Loose Ends

New to “Ron Shandler’s Other Book”? Read the Introduction. 

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Back in December, I thought this “Write a Book in Two Months” project would be a piece of cake. What else did I have to do in the dead of winter? I set myself a March 1 deadline to get it all written, edited and distributed. But the more I wrote, the more I realized there was more left to write. As I’m sitting here now, I estimate that BABS is only about 38 percent cooked.

Okay, maybe 43 percent. (Precision is so silly.)

But, I have to stop somewhere – at least for the “book” part of BABS – and this seems as good a spot as any.

So, what did you think?

A lot of words. Uncharacteristically few numbers, especially for you.

Okay… but are you buying into any of this? Do you finally understand life, the universe and everything?

Um… I think so. It all comes down to this (in order of ascending importance):

– Stats are our enemy. Precision is futile. We can’t predict the future.

– Players are more alike than they are different. The more the marketplace tries to differentiate between like-skilled players, the more opportunity there is for Draft Day profit.

– BABS can help us see all this. BABS is our friend. Maybe one day, if I can work up enough nerve, BABS could become more than just a friend.

– 42.

Wow. Nice. I sure could have saved a lot of typing.

But this is not the end of the process; it is actually the beginning. Now that we have BABS, we are going to need more. She is more than just a pretty face; she is an ever-evolving entity.

So, what’s next?

While the “book” ends here, the discussion continues online. I’ll be taking different cuts of the BABS data to uncover other interesting ways to see the players. Many of you have written about your own league’s unique formats and have asked how BABS could help you; I’ll address some of those. I’ll write about keeper leagues. At least once in March, I’ll post updated BABS files. Just before Opening Day, we’ll let BABS predict the pennant races, which is a totally pointless exercise but I just can’t help myself.

And we have to talk about where we can go with the BABS spreadsheet. I cut the following conversation out of Chapter 8 because it was running too long, but it’s important to share:

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Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Are you saying that I have to run my draft with a spreadsheet? Seriously? What is this, the 1990s?

Okay, I should address this. For those who use software programs to run their drafts, you are going to miss the bells-and-whistles that calculate inflation on the fly, provide in-draft projections, and do everything except clean the oven. I have great respect for the folks who have created such programs, but they lull us into a comfortable place with faux precision. All their calculations and fancy charts are driven by projections… and by now you know what I think about anything powered by projections.

The evidence that the results are far less valuable than you think rests in the pro-forma standings that these programs spit out at the end of your draft. How much validity do you put into those?

Um, pretty much none.

I thought so. But shouldn’t you? You’ve spent all that effort to build a team that generates the best set of projections. Shouldn’t you take the results more seriously?

It’s a long season.

Sure is. But BABS thinks you should start with a foundation that’s not so locked into a fixed set of numbers. We simply don’t know what those numbers are going to look like by October.

So yes, this spreadsheet will be a step back, a journey into retro-drafting of the 1990s. Yes, it will require a little more hands-on work. But deep down you know that a turnkey tool is never quite as valuable as one where you have to roll up your sleeves a bit.

And who knows? Once everyone falls in love with BABS, maybe she’ll agree to be automated too. Sorta like Ex Machina.

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But seriously, a more automated solution does need to be in the future. I don’t know whether it will be a more robust spreadsheet application or some interactive online system. But there will be a BABS 2.0 at some point. I’m no tech guy, but if you are and have ideas, I’d love to hear from you.

I’d also love to hear from everyone else. BABS is just an embryo (which puts all those earlier naughty thoughts into a completely different light) so there is much more development and evolution yet to come. If you have ideas how to improve it, drop me a note at baseball@ronshandler.com.

A few quick thank yous…

I’d like to thank Alex Patton, one of the industry’s earliest pioneers whose work pre-dates mine. I always enjoyed his writing style of having a conversation with his reader and this was my first chance to write in that form.

So, it was all his fault? You stole it?

Shhh… be quiet. I’d like to thank Jonathan Schoop. His two-year non-trend was one of my first epiphanies. He spoke to me and said, “Hey idiot, you’re doing it all wrong.”

I’d especially like to thank Time. Its passage has helped me see things more clearly than back in the 1994 Baseball Forecaster when I wrote “Numbers are everything.”

As always, thanks to Sue, Darielle, Justina (and Michele!).

Thanks to all of you who are still reading this and those of you who’ve sent me comments.

Oh, one last fun thank you…

Way back at the beginning of Chapter 6, I noted that I had enlisted the help of the participants in the Tout Wars experts leagues for their unique insights. While I suppose that my 30 years of experience qualifies me to have an opinion on some issues, it’s always helpful to get input from a broad cross-section of experts. Besides, these are my friends and colleagues, and I respect what they think.

You’ve already seen the results of the player surveys I conducted. But there were two more questions I asked them:

Who was the player who helped you win your first fantasy baseball title?

What is your favorite ballpark food (and the park)?

By means of acknowledging their input on this book project, here are their bios and responses:

Grey Albright (Razzball.com)
I’ve never been a suspect in Teresa Halbach’s murder.  Whew!
Player: This was more like nine players, the nine people that were in the league with me that weren’t good.
Food: The short-lived Kevin Maas Hard-Boiled Eggs with, of course, mustard

Doug Anderson (SoCalledFantasyExperts.com)
With a few extra rolls of the dice, Doug Anderson guided the 1981 Cubs to the World Series in Strat-O-Matic Baseball. He’s now the co-founder of SoCalledFantasyExperts.com and contributes to the Fantasy Sports Network.
Player: That’s a long time ago, but it was probably Fred McGriff when he got traded to the Braves and went ballistic.
Food: Any ballpark hot dog. They just taste like baseball.

Andy Behrens (Yahoo Sports)
Andy has been a fantasy sports analyst for Yahoo since 2007. He is a former Tout Wars winner (mixed, 2010) and the current president of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. He has also written three novels for young readers.
Player: Raul Mondesi
Food: Big fan of “The Dave Kingman,” which of course can be found at Wrigley Field.

Michael Beller (SI.com and 120 Sports)
Michael is the lead fantasy sports writer for Sports Illustrated and hosts the Fantasy Lunch Hour on 120 Sports, an all-digital sports network based in Chicago.
Player: The duo of Miguel Cabrera and Hideki Matsui in 2004.
Food: The real hot dogs at Wrigley Field. Not the ones from the vendors, the ones charred to perfection on the grill.

Jake Ciely (RotoExperts.com and FantasySportsNetwork.com)
Jake (@allinkid) is an award-nominated fantasy writer with nearly 20 years of experience. Jake uses his sought after, self-created metrics – including DAFP (Defense Adjusted Fantasy Points), SOBB (StrikeOut% minus BaseonBall%) and PAVE (Predictive AVErage) – to be one of the industry’s most accurate experts in rankings and predictions.
Player: Barry Larkin, 1996. Was a fan of his speed and double-digit home run potential at shortstop and fortunately owned him in his career year, as I never paid up for him after that season.
Food: Crab Dip Fries from Camden Yards. This really isn’t even debatable, as it’s the best ballpark food in the nation!

Glenn Colton (Fantasyalarm.com)
Glenn has played fantasy baseball for 28 years and has 4 LABR/Tout Wars championships under his belt. In addition to writing for fantasyalarm.com, he co-hosts the SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio show “Colton and the Wolfman.”
Player: Rickey Henderson
Food: Simple beer and a hot dog at Yankee Stadium.

Patrick Davitt (Baseball HQ Radio, BaseballHQ.com)
Patrick is a long-time roto player in home leagues and Tout Wars, married with two daughters (both baseball fans!).
Player: Roberto Alomar, $42, was the last piece of a carefully built two-year champ in a keeper league.
Food: The brat at old Milwaukee County Stadium

Nando Di Fino (FNTSY.com)
Nando has won awards and blah blah blah. His farts quietly whisper “Jedd Gyorko.’
Player: Vladimir Guerrero, in 1998.
Food: Anything that comes in a collectible plastic helmet

Rudy Gamble (Razzball.com)
Rudy is the co-founder of Razzball and is responsible for their fantasy baseball tools/projections.
Player: Alfonso Soriano
Food: Southside BBQ brisket sandwich at Dell Diamond (Round Rock Express AAA)

Mike Gianella (Baseball Prospectus)
Mike writes about fantasy baseball for Baseball Prospectus, and has been writing about fantasy baseball since 2007. He is the defending champion of Tout Wars – NL and the co-defending champion of LABR, Mixed. In his other job, he works in the Data Sciences department of a Fortune 100 healthcare corporation.
Player: Albert Belle in 1998
Food: Crab fries at Citizen’s Bank Park

Peter Kreutzer (Askrotoman.com, PattonandCo.com, The Fantasy Baseball Guide)
Peter is the editor-in-chief of the The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2016, the 17th big edition, since 2000. His online advice column, Ask Rotoman, originated at ESPN in 1996. His first player projections were for Peter Golenbock’s How to Win at Rotisserie Baseball and have since won awards and been published by ESPN, MLB.com and PattonandCo.com.
Player: Cecil Fielder, with help from Howard Johnson
Food: Brats at the old Comiskey Park

Andrea LaMont (RotoExperts, LennyMelnickFantasySports.com)
Player: Matt Holliday in 2008
Food: The Keith Hernandez Mexi Burger at Citi Field. I know it has Jalepeno Peppers, lots of creamy cheese and a Tootsie Roll lollipop on the side.

Robert Leibowitz (Mastersball.com and Rotoheaven.com)
Rob is celebrating his 25th year of playing fantasy baseball this season! He is a 15-year member of Tout Wars. He is bringing back Rotoheaven.com for the first time since 2000 to blog on fantasy baseball, and other musings from out of left field.
Player: Barry Bonds (1993)
Food: Knish at Shea Stadium (on a childhood memory basis, but the food at Citifield is fantastic)

Tim McCullough (RotoExperts.com)
Tim has been playing fantasy baseball since the days when stats were pulled from the newspapers on Wednesdays and compiled by hand. He’s the Managing Editor for RotoExperts.com.
Player: Pedro Martinez
Food: Sausage and pepper sub at Fenway Park

Tim McLeod (Patton and Co/Prospect361)
Tim is the proud winner of the 2015 Tout Mixed Draft League and spent the off-season scouring Asia for the next Ichiro.
Player: Mo Vaughn – 1993 was a great year to invest in Vaughn.
Food: A hot dog in early November in any park in Arizona. A dog is a dog is a dog, but the company we keep while enjoying that dog… priceless!

Lenny Melnick (lennymelnickfantasysports.com and SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio)
Lenny hosted the industry’s first first Rotisserie Radio Show in 1993. He has appeared on TV on This Week in Baseball and Pennant Chase, and MLB Radio, Sirius Radio and RotoExperts.com.
Player: Luis Sojo
Food: Chili in Cincinnati

Lawr Michaels (Mastersball.com and USA Today)
Lawr has been a core member of the fantasy analysis community since he wrote for John Benson in 1993. He has won two Tout AL titles and is known within the industry as the Zen Master for his singular style of play.
Player: Bret Saberhagen
Food: Calamari and sushi at ATT!

Steve Moyer (inside-edge.com)
Steve has over 25 years of baseball industry experience. He is now with scouting and data analytics pioneer Inside Edge.
Player: Julio Franco
Food: Hot dog at Veterans Stadium in Philly.

Ray Murphy (BaseballHQ.com)
Ray is co-General Manager at BaseballHQ.com, and perhaps the industry’s last remaining Clay Buchholz apologist.
Player: Bobby Bonilla
Food: Italian Sausage at Fenway!

Adam Ronis (rotoexperts.com)
Adam currently co-hosts the RotoExperts morning drive show with Scott Engel on Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio. The program airs weekdays from 6-9 AM EDT and is simulcast on the Fantasy Sports Network. He has also written for Newsday.
Player: Mo Vaughn
Food: Keith Hernandez burger at CitiField

Bret Sayre (Baseball Prospectus)
Bret is currently the Managing Editor of Baseball Prospectus and has been leading the fantasy content for nearly three years. He is also a two-time expert league champion (Tout X in 2015, LABR Mixed in 2015 with Mike Gianella), a soothing voice on two podcasts (Flags Fly Forever, There Is No Offseason), a compulsive ranker and a staunch opponent of serial commas everywhere.
Player: Nomar Garciaparra
Food: The Citi Field CF combo: double shack burger from Shake Shack and fries from Box Frites (with the smokey bacon sauce)

Larry Schechter (winningfantasybaseballthebook.com)
Larry is a six-time winner of Tout Wars, a winner of LABR and two-time winner of the CDM Sports national salary-cap challenge.  He is also the author of the Amazon bestseller Winning Fantasy Baseball.
Player: Pedro Martinez
Food: Fenway Frank

Cory Schwartz (MLB.com, @schwartzstops)
Cory is the VP of Stats for MLB.com, overseeing year-round data capture of all MLB, minor league and winter league games. He is also a long-time co-host of the Fantasy 411.
Player: Gary Sheffield, who hit .276-27-78-12-61 in 1994 to help win my strike-shortened NL-only keeper league championship. Not outstanding numbers, but my best five-category player in a deeeeep offense.
Food: Whatever beer is cold and local to that ballpark.

Ron Shandler (What? Can’t I contribute too?)
Player: Billy Swift, and his 21-win season in 1993. Admittedly, Barry Bonds helped too.
Food: It’s a tie. CitiField’s grilled hot dog with brown mustard and ketchup-braised onions rates an 8 out of 10 in my highly critical dog book. Its equal is a split, fire-grilled dog on a toasted egg bun with mustard and cole slaw at Hunnicutt Field (Princeton, WV Rays) in the Appalachian League, and for just $2! The Princeton edition would be the runaway wiener… um, winner, if the dog was a little bigger and they offered brown deli mustard. Hey, this is important!

Zach Steinhorn (mastersball.com, fantasy411.mlblogs.com)
Zach authors a weekly column at mastersball.com while serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the free site content. He also produces and writes for the MLB.com Fantasy 411 blog.
Player: Bartolo Colon in his 2005 AL Cy Young campaign.
Food: Ice cream at Fenway.

Scott Swanay (FantasyBaseballSherpa.com, @fantasy_sherpa)
Scott is an actuary by training, and a big proponent of position scarcity.
Player: Can’t remember, probably Minnie Minoso
Food: I avoid ballpark food like the plague.

Perry Van Hook (Mastersball)
Perry is a 30-year veteran of auction AL/NL only leagues who has branched out to mixed draft leagues and written about strategy and minor league prospects for several years. He is an Official Scorer for Arizona Fall League and Arizona Rookie League. He also works as a stringer for MLB.com in spring training in retirement home of Arizona.
Player: Roger Clemens, 1987
Food: Grilled Dodger Dogs at Dodger Stadium

Brian Walton (Mastersball.com)
Brian is one of three managing principals of Mastersball.com and is a
former National League Tout Wars champion. He also writes about the St. Louis Cardinals system at TheCardinalNation.com.
Player: Pedro Martinez, Montreal, 1997.
Food: Shake Shack Burger, CitiField.

Charlie Wiegert (godfatheroffantasysports.com)
The godfather of fantasy sports has been playing and winning fantasy baseball leagues since the mid 80s.
Player: Rickey Henderson
Food: Turkey leg, Busch Stadium

Fred Zinkie (MLB.com)
Fred is the lead fantasy writer for MLB.com and also proud participant in the Tout Wars Mixed Auction League.
Player: Randy Johnson in 2000
Food: I honestly can’t think of one. I’m not a big eater at the ballpark.

Todd Zola (Mastersball, ESPN, Rotowire and Baseball HQ Radio)
Todd pretended writing about all things fantasy baseball wasn’t his real job starting in 1997, leaving biotech in 2010 to finally make it official. He’s a multi-time NFBC league winner and an FSWA award-winning writer but is obsessed with winning his first Tout Wars or LABR title.
Player: Jimmy Key
Food: Fenway Frank at Fenway Park – it’s a state law

The final accounting…

Of the winning players, 69 percent were hitters and 31 percent were pitchers. Pedro Martinez, Mo Vaughn and Rickey Henderson each received multiple votes.

Of the favorite foods, 45 percent chose some hot dog–related tubed meat concoction. We are traditionalists! Fenway Park and CitiField led the pack with 5 mentions apiece. Ain’t no East Coast bias here.

Nice of you to wrap up with some numbers.

That’s it. I’m done. Go draft.