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Ken's Korner

The place that I'll ramble on about all things baseball, with the occasional off-topic comments included as well.

C15 Predictions - Dateline March 31, 2009

HOW IT WILL ALL PLAY OUT:

Tim and Ken will battle it out with the Crush edging the Legends. Orlando holds on for the wild card over Salusan. Burlington then wins to get to the World Series, eventually beating Pistakee Bay, who won vs. Parkland. Wire to wire for Burlington. No pressure Waltar. Save those spot starter studs for Burlington. I'll be using Morrow and Giese instead of Vazquez if we meet.

TEAM BY TEAM PROJECTIONS

JUNIOR CIRCUIT

EASTERN
California Crush 90 wins Injuries at 1B and C see the Crush come back to the pack. They still have Halladay, plus enough hitting from Arod and Hamilton leads to a division title once again.

Lafayette Legends 87 wins Strong hitting OF plus Mauer at catcher bode well leading to a wild card with a deep bullpen in Lidge, Carlson, and Johnson holding leads. Two lefties in the rotation could lead to disappointment.

Salusan 84 wins McCann and Dye lead a strong attack, but another bat at 1B would help. Starting staff needs some help, but don't expect any leads to be lost in the 8th or 9th inning with Balfour and Romo back closing things out.

Wabash 76 wins Hitting is above average, but if you start JoJo Reyes, you can't make the playoffs. Adding an average starter could see this team make the playoffs, but don't expect that with no owner in sight.

Oakland 57 wins Worst team in baseball, they will give up lots of runs with only Santana and Wang providing any type of major league quality. The team should score some runs, but expect many 7-4 losses.

WESTERN
Burlington 108 wins Wow. Best offense, best pitching staff. If you win a 5 game series you have done well. Anything short of a World Series is a disappointment. No holes in this team.

Orlando 89 wins Great hitting team with Huff, Bradley, and Quentin leading the way. Starting staff beyond Lincecum mayb dissappoint with ERA's in high 4's. Should get the wild card.

Port Orchard 82 wins No real ace will hurt as Garza is the best they have. Hitting is very strong with strength at all positions as Navarro is the worst of the bunch at catcher. Pick up an ace, make the playoffs. Then lose to Burlington.

Siebu 75 wins Top 3 starters in Lowe, Duchscherere and Marcum at top notch, but the bullpen is below average beyond Devine, who might be hurt. Holes at catcher, 2B and OF see this team finishing below .500

Kokomo 68 wins Things might have been different if some relievers had been drafted, but then again too many holes offensively see this team finishing last.

SENIOR CIRCUIT

EASTERN
Pistakee Bay 91 wins Pujols, a career year from Ludwick and the consistant Wright give this team a very good offense. Peavy and Shields lead a good pitching staff, with a very good Marmol closing things out.

San Diego 83 wins Last year it was pitching, this year, not so much. If Bannister/Harang can be replaced, this team makes the playoffs. If not, expect .500 Offense is strong with no real weakness.

Chattanooga 75 wins Good bullpen can't overcome injuries to Hudson and Young that will limit their usage. Low scoring offense sees a below .500 record. Trade of Damon to a contender can help the rebuild process.

Tucson 69 wins Offense lead by Iannetta, Longoria, Granderson and Hawpe will score runs, but this team doesn't have any strong starting pitchers. They are young so they could end up being very good next year.

Reno 65 wins New team name sees the pitching staff struggle all year., even from Hernandez who might struggle vs. lefties all year. Team forgot to get a catcher as the Ausmus/Towles combo is worse than the pitcher hitting.

WESTERN
Parkland Boyz 90 wins Strong lefties may be hurt by the lefty effect, much like last year that saw the top 3 lefties end up with ERA's at 4.00 instead of the expected 3.5. A top closer would be helpful as well, but this team should manage to win the division.

Stanton 83 wins How do you keep a team out of the playoffs, start Kenji Johjima. An average catcher boosts this team up by 3 wins. Trade for one. Win the wild card.. Win a playoff series. Who knows. GET A CATCHER.

Carolina 80 wins Chipper, Morneau, Beltran, Giles and Reyes lead a great offense, but beyond Webb and Guthrie the pitchers are offensive. High scoreing games and a .500 record are the norm here.

Glen Ellyn 77 wins Beyond Beckett this team doesn't have the pitching to contend. Solid lineup throughout could mean reaching .500. Oh, they have two good catchers but could use a pitcher. Hmmmm

Burlington 71 wins Haran is good, as is Rivera, but starters 2-5 are not. Rebuild, trade Rivera and Nady for picks, and be ready for next year. Sorry Tim.

Posted Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:10 AM by KenG | 1 Comments

C15 SEASON PREDICTIONS

How it will all play out:

In the Jr Circuit expect ERA's around 5 for every team in the East except California. I don't see any team challenging the Crush for the division title, while a wild card is a possibility for one of these teams if they pick up a good #3 starter. The West sees Burlington and Orlando fighting it out, then playing each other in the first round, where the winner faces the Crush in the second round, with the Crush moving on to the World Series.

The Sr. Circuit has the stronger teams this year, Carolina and San Diego the cream of that crop. The battle for the two wild card positions comes down to Chattanooga, Pistakee Bay, and Parkland. Expect Carolina to face San Diego, with no clear cut favorite to meet California in the World Series.

The World Series sees two evenly matched teams facing each other, with fatigue possibly playing a part as some players might not be available.

Good luck to all teams in proving these projections wrong. Remember just one major trade can change everything.

NOW THE TEAM BY TEAM PREDICTIONS:

JUNIOR CIRCUIT

EASTERN

California Crush 100

Best hitting in the league with Posada, Helton, Arod, and company, plus 3 good starters and easy division could lead to the World Series. 4th starter only weakness and doesn't come into play for this team in the playoffs.

Salusan 76

No real hitting star with the team led by Burrell, lack of enough good starter innings will lead to an average season. A couple trades landing another hitter and pitcher gets this team into the wild card. Will they make that push?

Lafayette Legends 73

Vlad will help this team score a lot of runs, but only two decent starters will lead this team to a lot of high scoring games. Bullpen lacks depth as well. Looks like a rebuilding year.

Oakland 71

Surprise team last year as they were outscored but still won 90 games, look for the team to drop back into the basement as Roberts and Matsui won't be enough to get this team in contention.

Wabash 69

Hudson and Kazmir are fine, but they are the only two guys that can be counted on starting, Heath Bell will help, as will a strong offense led by Soriano, but breaking .500 is extremely doubtful.

WESTERN

Burlington 89

Braun, Hanley Ramirez, Teixeira plus a very strong relief corp make Burlington the team to beat in its division. Don't expect the starting staff to be as good as their ERA might suggest, but still good enough to win.

Orlando 86

Strong bullpen plus Ortiz, Lincecum and Lilly get this team into the playoffs. Some weakness at catcher and the lack of another hitting superstar will keep this team from going far in the playoffs.

Siebu 78

This team can hit with guys like Thome, Utlely, Hermida and Cust smacking the ball around. Lack of bullpen depth and higher than expected ERA's from the SP keep this team around .500. Picking up a couple strong pitchers sees this team finish above .500 and get the final wild card spot.

Port Orchard 75

Fielder, Dunn and Howard make things tough on pitchers, but beyond McGowan these starters don't frighten you. If another SP is brought in this team will climb the standings.

Kokomo 73

Average starters and relievers plus average hitting for this division leads to a last place finish. Could just as easily finish with the last wild card if top reliever and a SS/2B can be traded for as the 4th through the 8th teams aren't much different from each other.

SENIOR CIRCUIT

EASTERN

San Diego 93

Pitching pitching pitching, this team has it. It’s the best staff in baseball. All 5 starters may end up with ERA's below 4, plus two great closers make this the team to beat in the division. Some worry next year as Lackey and Escobar have complained about some arm soreness.

Chattanooga 89

Pena, Ichiro, and Alou lead a strong offenxe with a very good 1-2 punch in Verlander and Young. Could use a better 3rd pitcher to help guarentee a wild card.

Pistakee Bay 88

Peavy, Albert and Putz, no, not a law firm, but the leaders of this team that will have them in the wild card chase.

Morgan Hill 63

The bullpen looks good with depth and a great closer. The problem is they won't have many leads to protect as the starters are suspect and the hitting is average. Should be able to stay out of the cellar.

Tucson 62

No starting pitching in this division means a long season. This team can score some runs, but a team ERA that will approach 5 won't cut it in the NL.

WESTERN

Carolina 96

Best offense in the NL combined with good pitching should get the best record in the NL. Catcher only real weakness.

Parkland Boyz 88

Three very good starters plus Holiday, Martinez and Craford leading the attack sees this team getting the Wild Card. Possible that the three lefty SP underperform and the team misses out. Good test for the lefty curse of PB.

Stanton 82

This team can hit with Bonds and Pence, but expect the pitching to underperform leaving the team at just above .500.

Glen Ellyn 78

Josh and Fausto are very good, but with the best two hitters on the team sharing the same position, they won't score enough runs to make it to .500

Burlington 71

Very good infield offensively, they are short circuited by a poor hitting catcher and starting pitching, which leaves the team in last place.

Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 2:34 PM by KenG | 1 Comments

Evaluating prospects: Matt Kemp, Jeremy Hermida, Hunter Pence

So I just traded Matt Kemp for Jeremy Hermida. Being the great GM that I am I decided to do some research after I made the deal. Why did I make the deal, you ask? Because its PB that we play. I made the trade in a 24 team league, thus stats are pretty accurate, but its still going to have a platoon effect. Simply stated I wanted a lefty over a righty.

Did I make the right decision? Using Pecota from Baseball Prospectus shows Kemp and Hermida to very even. I decided to include Hunter Pence here as well as he will be a top 5 pick and is one of the top OF in this draft. Notice in EQA he is the lowest rated player? But look at WARP, he wins hands down. Why? Because he is projected at CF while the other to guys are at RF.

Positional value needs to be included as one set of criteria, along with a players age, hitting skills, team he is with, your needs, etc. If I could have Pence over Hermida I'd probably give up some offense to get CF play, plus I'd take Hermida over Kemp by a whisker. Hope you enjoyed. If you have some spare cash join Baseball Prospectus as its fun to use Pecota and see a players career.

KEMP										EQUIVALENTS
Year	PA	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	EqA	VORP	Defense	WARP
2007 (age 22)	311	12	5	10	16	66	10	5	0.345	0.379	0.541	0.920	0.304	23.400	69-RF -4	3.1
2008 (age 23)	496	28	4	19	35	97	18	5	0.294	0.347	0.511	0.858	0.287	27.700	117-RF 0	4.200
2009 (age 24)	511	29	4	20	38	98	18	5	0.293	0.349	0.504	0.853	0.291	26.000	120-RF 0	4.200
2010 (age 25)	527	30	4	22	42	98	18	5	0.300	0.358	0.520	0.878	0.298	31.000	124-RF 1	4.700
2011 (age 26)	518	30	3	22	43	93	21	5	0.301	0.361	0.524	0.885	0.301	32.400	122-RF 0	4.700
2012 (age 27)	556	34	3	25	45	97	19	4	0.299	0.357	0.530	0.887	0.300	28.200	131-RF 0	4.100
2013 (age 28)	541	32	3	24	45	97	15	4	0.291	0.348	0.520	0.868	0.293	25.100	127-RF -2	3.800
2014 (age 29)	536	30	2	24	47	96	14	3	0.288	0.349	0.512	0.861	0.292	23.100	126-RF -2	3.600
												0.876	0.296			32.400

HERMIDA										EQUIVALENTS
Year	PA	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	EqA	VORP	Defense	WARP
2007 (age 23)	484	32	1	18	47	105	3	4	0.304	0.379	0.525	0.904	0.300	27.300	111-RF 1	4.9
2008 (age 24)	532	31	2	19	67	106	9	3	0.284	0.377	0.494	0.871	0.295	27.900	125-RF -1	4.500
2009 (age 25)	541	31	2	20	68	104	9	2	0.278	0.370	0.485	0.855	0.294	24.300	127-RF 0	4.500
2010 (age 26)	566	32	2	21	74	111	10	3	0.275	0.371	0.484	0.855	0.294	24.500	133-RF -1	4.500
2011 (age 27)	552	31	2	20	73	102	9	2	0.280	0.376	0.487	0.863	0.297	26.000	130-RF -4	4.400
2012 (age 28)	542	31	2	19	71	99	7	2	0.279	0.374	0.485	0.859	0.295	23.500	127-RF -3	4.000
2013 (age 29)	494	26	2	18	67	94	7	2	0.274	0.372	0.478	0.850	0.293	19.600	117-RF -3	3.600
2014 (age 30)	565	32	2	22	76	104	9	2	0.281	0.376	0.498	0.874	0.299	22.800	132-RF -5	3.600
												0.866	0.296			34.000

PENCE										EQUIVALENTS
Year	PA	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	EqA	VORP	Defense	WARP
2007 (age 24)	484	30	9	17	26	95	11	5	0.329	0.370	0.561	0.931	0.31	40.5	93-CF 5	6.4
2008 (age 25)	567	30	4	23	44	110	13	4	0.288	0.347	0.505	0.852	0.29	32	133-CF 2	5.4
2009 (age 26)	589	31	5	25	51	113	13	4	0.286	0.349	0.504	0.853	0.29	32	138-CF 1	5.4
2010 (age 27)	600	33	4	26	51	111	13	3	0.292	0.353	0.513	0.866	0.29	34	140-CF 2	5.5
2011 (age 28)	587	33	5	25	50	113	11	3	0.289	0.350	0.514	0.864	0.29	30.3	137-CF -1	4.7
2012 (age 29)	549	29	4	25	50	105	9	3	0.290	0.355	0.518	0.873	0.3	30.4	129-CF -3	4.6
2013 (age 30)	536	30	3	23	50	103	8	2	0.284	0.350	0.504	0.854	0.29	24.1	126-CF -4	3.8
2014 (age 31)	534	28	3	24	50	98	7	2	0.287	0.353	0.513	0.866	0.29	23.4	125-CF -3	3.7
												0.870	0.293			39.5

Posted Friday, March 07, 2008 8:35 AM by KenG | 3 Comments

Basic instructions for submitting away lineups.

Concerning the robot. First, let me say I've played many different computer games vs. the computer and the PB robot is smarter than most of those AI's.

Now you must submit lineups that are different than you home lineups.

1 - Make sure you split up your righties and lefties. I see so many lineups from owners that have 3 righties in a rows, then 4 lefties, etc. This makes it much easier to run my bullpen when I face your team since I always have a couple relievers with huge splits when I'm at home.

2 - Don't use relievers with huge splits on the road, or set them to long relief if you need to keep them on the 25 man roster. Use relievers that are .670 ROPS and .690 LOPS on the road as opposed to a .550 ROPS and 790 LOPS. The robot will have some problems finding the best matchups with the staff. If you are facing a team that will have 2/3's of its guys from one side of the plate or the other, than you can use these big split guys.

Simple formula for setting your pitching staff.

3 good relievers - 2 at short relief, 1 at middle relief, balance at long relief. Make sure the second best guy is the middle reliever.

4 good relievers - 2 at short relief, 2 at middle relief, balance at long relief. Make sure the second best guy is a middle reliever.

5 good relievers - 2 at short relief, 2 at middle relief, balance at long relief plus one closer. Only use this if 1 guy is head and shoulders above the rest. Best guy is closer, 2nd best guy at short relief, third best guy at middle relief.

Remember that if you are a good owner, then you should always have a better home lineup than a road lineup since you go last when it comes to choosing matchups for the starting lineup and for relievers being used.

Posted Saturday, January 12, 2008 10:30 AM by KenG | 0 Comments

PureBaseball Chat room.

Feel free to use this chat room that I've created. Its under the new website I created, http://grashoff.bravehost.com/ Just click "Enter the PureBaseball Chatroom".

or use this quick link http://pub1.bravenet.com/chat/show.php/60942625

Its free, with the occasional popup. Make sure you don't leave the login screen or the chat room or you get thrown off. Its very stable, very fast. I used it for a live draft this past Friday with no problems and I was on it for 90 minutes.

Posted Saturday, January 06, 2007 11:15 PM by KenG | 0 Comments

Evaluating your pitching staff - The Starters

This info is from the Hardball Times

	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	AVE
MLB	3.60	4.14	4.58	5.10	6.24	4.73
PB	3.24	3.73	4.12	4.59	5.62	4.26

They compiled the average ERA of every teams starters and the following numbers were made available for #1 - #5 starters. The numbers for PB were set at .90 of MLB's numbers based on less teams in our leagues. I compared my 4 real time teams to these:

PB 98 Real Time 1 Garden Grove Gunslingers 3.51, 3.61, 4.41, 4.53, 4.63 4.14 ave

PB 99 RealTime 1 So Cal Slammers 3.63, 3.83, 3.98, 4.63, 4.93 4.20 ave

PB 99 RealTime 2 Stanton Strikers 2.94, 4.51, 4.52, 4.82, 5.33 4.43 ave

PB 2000 Real Time 1 Stanton Sluggers 3.10, 3.65, 4.08, 4.52, 4.88 4.05 ave

The Stanton Strikers are the only team not going to the playoffs. The other three have good offensives to backup slightly above average staffs.

Remember that PB uses ROPS and LOPS(just to keep things basic), not ERA when figuring out the pitcher/batter matchups.

I will also note that I usually use a 4 man rotation with my 5th starter rotating in for #2-#4 depending on the lefty/righty matchups and find that my starters perform better this way as opposed to using a 5 man staff. Note you need 5 above average relievers for a 4 man rotation to work.

Bottom line is if your top 5 starters are worse then the chart above, making the playoffs is going to be very difficult. If they are better, you have taken the first step to making the playoffs next season.

Posted Thursday, December 28, 2006 4:50 PM by KenG | 0 Comments

Exciting changes here at Purebaseball.

I hope everyone else is as excited as I am about the changes that we have seen this week(no, not talking about the Reds deal Wink ). The additions for the message boards, as well as the ability for each owner to keep his/her own blog is a great addition.

I know many owners didn't like to include their names when posting and I could sort of understand that. Hopefully those owners will continue posting and we can have some great discussions about baseball and PB.

We all don't have to agree on everything we write. Just remember try to respect the other owners in the league and I think those owners will respect you as well, even when the discussion become heated.

I'm hoping that this will get more managers involved. With over 100 managers the number of topics and messages on the previous boards was quite small. Hopefully this will change.

Thats it for now.

Posted Friday, July 14, 2006 11:31 PM by KenG | 1 Comments

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