Concession Stand

I think that this just wasn't my year in baseball. I have to be honest, the 2009 edition of the O.N. Thugs baseball club was just mystifying to me, particularly my offense. Coming out of the draft, I knew that my strength was going to be my pitching, but I thought that my offense was going to be good, and competitive for top end points. Boy, I was wrong. Here's what I wrote in my draft recap:

I'm planning on having my way with SV, and the rate stats. I'll need to dig up another starter or two, but should be able to compete with W, L, and K, as well. Pitching projections don't work nearly as well, when you get into the counting numbers, but the goal is to get 60 points (out of a possible 72) from my pitching.

Well, I was sort of right. I started off really slow (Harden was really bad), and then Peavy went down. But for the last few months, I've had the best pitching (rate-wise), anchored by Lincecum, Carpenter, and Kershaw. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the W's show up. Doing a quick check of my starters, it's sort of sick. If you count up the unlucky outcomes (L's or ND's when they pitched well) and subtract out the lucky outcomes (W's or ND's when they pitched poorly), it's sick. Lincecum has been unlucky 9 times, and lucky 2 times. Carpenter has been unlucky 5 times, and hasn't been lucky. Harden has been unlucky 6 times and lucky once. And since I traded for him, Kershaw has been unlucky 7 times, and hasn't been lucky. Now, I understand that there's a greater likelihood of being unlucky (since the bullpen comes in and blows it) than lucky (where your offense bails you out), but these numbers just seem incredible to me. Instead of 7 games over .500, I can't help but wonder if this collection "should" have been something like 25 games over .500 (essentially with a couple fewer L's, and with about 15 more W's). That right there is 8 points in the standings, which would have put my offense at like 62 points, and still in competition for about 5 more points. I still think that some things will work out in my favor on this end, but the lack of W's has been a killer.

But not as much a killer as my offense. Back in April, I was somewhat optimistic.

My OBP will be good - should be around .375 this year, which should put me at the top of the league. And my SLG should be around .475, which should put me in the top 3, at least. I think that I can squeeze 225 HR out of this lineup, which will make me competitive. With this team 900 R should be a given. The RBI are a little more tenuous, with a projection of 870 RBI being reasonable. With SB, my starters should net me about 80 SB, but I have the option of getting steals w/ Tavarez and Lopez. The only question is how much other offense that will cost me. The goal is to get 52 points with the first 5 categories, and then to play SB by ear, and try to cheat my way to 5 points in SB.

First the good news. My team is slow, but I had enough speed to get my way to 5 points in SB, even w/out playing Tavaras or Lopez much (both of whom have been dropped). Also, I was dead on with my prediction about OBP. I'm leading the league at .376, and that's after a bad week of offense. So far, so good. Normally OBP correlates pretty highly with R and RBI. Unfortunately, I'm currently in 5th place or so in both R and RBI, and I think that I've juiced about all of the R and RBI I can get out of my OBP. Where I've gotten killed is with my HR,
specifically with David Wright, the Thome/Delgado pairing, and Russell Martin and Nick Markakis taking a step back (rather than making The Leap). Originally, I had guessed 225 HR, which would have been roughly 3rd in the league, based on historical numbers. I'm currently on pace for about 195, and this includes the Jorge Posada acquisition, and Derek Jeter and Josh Willingham contributing more than expected. You very quickly see why my offense has disappointed.

Quick breakdown, with projected 2009 totals, as well as reasonable guesses for the players coming into the season.

David Wright actual (projected 2009 totals): .400/.459, 95R, 12HR, 78RBI, 27SB
David Wright reasonable guess 2009: .395/.525, 110R, 35HR, 115RBI, 25SB

Russell Martin actual (projected 2009 totals): .356/.338, 65R, 8HR, 55RBI, 12SB
Russell Martin reasonable guess 2009: .370/.420, 85R, 15HR, 80RBI, 18SB

Nick Markakis actual (projected 2009 totals): .350/.460, 95R, 19HR, 110RBI, 15SB
Nick Markakis reasonable guess 2009: .380/.500, 105R, 28HR, 105RBI, 15SB

Missing stats from Wright/Martin/Markakis: .004 OBP, .020 SLG, 45R, 39HR, 57RBI, 4SB

We're talking 6 points in SLG, 4 in R, 5 in HR, 3.5 in RBI. 18.5 points right there. Don't get me wrong. Jeter's made up some ground for me (maybe .001 OBP, .002 SLG, 12R, 5HR, and 10SB). And the Willingham pickup helped me out. But when you give up that much ground from your top picks, you have to get lucky late in the draft.

You'll notice that in part 2 of the draft recap, I say that the key to winning is not whiffing on your first 3 picks. Out of my top 5 picks, only Lincecum performed up to snuff. I picked Wright 1st, Lincecum 2nd, Markakis 3rd, Peavy 4th, and Martin 5th. My first 3 hitters whiffed, and Peavy got hurt. That makes it really though to win. The way to make up for it is to hit with your late round picks. I managed to get a couple of those right, big time. George Sherrill has been awfully good, but lost a lot of value after being traded to the Dodgers. And Carpenter has been one of the best pitchers this year. However, where I really needed to hit big with with Thome/Delgado, since I needed the power.

Thome actual (stats when traded - 107 Games): .372/.493, 55R, 23HR, 74RBI
Delgado actual (stats until injured - 26 Games): .393/.521, 15R, 4HR, 23RBI

A reasonable projection for the two players combined would look like this:

Thome reasonable guess: .370/.490, 80R, 30HR, 95RBI
Delgado reasonable guess: .390/.510, 95R, 32HR, 105RBI

Of course this is assuming no injuries. But that's what you always assume. Naturally, you have to adjust your plans, if you need replacement players. I've had a knack for doing well in free agency in the past, so I sort of ignore the potential of injuries, I guess...

You can certainly discount some for injuries. But to only get 2/3 a season out of the 2 of them was tough. Had I gotten the 135 games out of each of them, that may have been enough to help out the rest of the offense to make up for the lack of production from Wright/Markakis/Martin. But that wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, if I hit my goals in pitching and hitting, I'm looking at 117 points, which should put me in a spot to compete for the league this year. Granted, those are optimistic goals, but I have a suspicion that the UPL Keeper Era will have a distinct O.N. Thugs flavor.

This doesn't seem like it's going to work out. In fact, I'm looking at a 4th place finish. Oh well. I guess that the major question is to figure out if this was just me being a little unlucky this year, or if my assumptions/projections were just off. I will grant that I tend to build me teams a little on the fragile side. I definitely play to win, and figure that 2nd place is no better than last place, so I take on more risk with injury-prone players. But really, the lack of production hasn't come due to injury from these sorts of players. Oh well. Back to the drawing board... well... in a couple weeks, anyway, when it's official that the O.N. Thugs aren't going for the Roland Slam in 2009...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)