A Thug Walks Into a Pawn Shop...

So, the O.N. Thugs and Westy's Ballers have completed a trade. The O.N. Thugs' response? That it was an odd feeling, like walking into a pawn shop in an alternate universe that had reasonable items on the shelves. They went on to note that perhaps the only thing stranger would be to complete a trade with C-Lauff. Westy's response? That C-Lauff would never complete a trade with a competitive team. Ouch. C-Lauff's response? He thought it was a strange trade, that the O.N. Thugs would win the trade this year, but that the jury would be out for the future.

I don't know how strange it is. Obviously, for a team that's in title contention, winning a given trade for that year is a must, unless there's a young superstar involved (think Blake Griffin or something like that). And doing so without gutting the keeper base generally makes the trade a win. As for a rebuilding team, the goal is to get value for older veterans that are borderline keepers, to get younger, and to get likely multiple-year keepers. I think that both teams got what they wanted.

The trade basically went like this. Westy wanted Conley, as an emerging top 10-12 PG, and top 50 player, and someone who the "advanced stats" have always loved. Remember, how he drafted Conley last year, instead of Tyreke Evans? And then he dropped Conley, only to have him start playing well for the O.N. Thugs? And then let Conley slide to the O.N. Thugs in the 4th round of the draft this year, only to have him emerge with a career year? Well, the theory is that Westy wanted to correct that. Given that the O.N. Thugs actually had Conley as their 3rd PG, this was a distinct possibility. The initial offer from Westy was for some bland bench players (think someone like Jamal Crawford, who we've talked about being a non-O.N. Thugs sort of guy here before), which wasn't to the O.N. Thugs liking.

The O.N. Thugs responded with an offer for Al Jefferson in a 1-for-1, but noted that they'd also go for Millsap.


Player A: .453/.767, 15.1 PTS, 1.0 3PM, 7.0 AST, 3.1 REB, 2.1 STL, 2.547 A/TO
Player B: .469/.851, 16.5, 8.8 REB, 2.0 OREB, 1.8 AST, 0.5 STL, 1.7 BLK, 1.438 A/TO
Player C: .550/.725, 17.9 PTS, 8.1 REB, 2.2 OREB, 2.4 AST, 1.5 STL, 0.8 BLK, 1.771 A/TO

The logic was that Conley (Player A) and Jefferson (Player B) had similar scoring, similar percentages, and that Millsap (Player C) was close enough to Jefferson, though he didn't qualify at C. Conely is a plus STL, AST and A/TO guy, and gives you some 3PM. The Thugs needed REB, OREB, BLK, and wanted some FG% in return, if they were going to move Conley.

As a total aside, there was also a secret, illogical reason for the request for Jefferson/Millsap. The O.N. Thugs wanted to have a 2nd good Jazz player on their roster so that they could enjoy watching Jazz games more (since the Jazz have become one of the Thugs' favorite real-life teams, now that D-Will is out there). In the original UPL Keeper Draft, the O.N. Thugs even chose Carlos Boozer over Dwight Howard for the reason that watching D-Will/Boozer for the next few years would be more fun/time-efficient. Yeah. Sometimes, trades work like that.

Westy balked at the 1 for 1, and countered with an improvement from his initial offer that included Tyson Chandler, but still was an awkward 2-for 1 deal for the O.N. Thugs' roster to take, and wasn't enough value to overwhelm the roster makeup.

The O.N. Thugs were intrigued at the possibility of reacquiring Chandler, a valuable part of O.N. Thugs championships in years past, and offered Cousins for Chandler, as a youth for veteran help now, which seems to be a fair deal, based on UPL moves in the past.

It seemed that Westy was OK with the Cousins/Chandler move, but it became clear that Westy still wanted Conley. Last last night, the offer of Cousins for Chandler, plus Conley for Millsap, plus Gallinari for Pierce was offered. If you put together the events from earlier in the negotiations (Westy's refusal to move Millsap for Conley; Cousins for Chandler seeming like a reasonable trade), the conclusion is that Gallinari has more value that Pierce. And if you look at the stats, both have awfully similar stats this year:

Player A: .400/.909, 15.3 PTS, 2.0 3PM, 4.9 REB, 0.9 OREB, 1.7 AST, 0.7 STL, 0.5 BLK, 2.048 A/TO
Player B: .497/.843, 18 PTS, 1.1 3PM, 4.7 REB, 0.3 OREB, 2.7 AST, 0.7 STL, 0.8 BLK, 1.575 A/TO

The key issue is that Gallinari's 11 years younger (and is Player A, above). In fact, across the entire trade, Westy picks up Conley (23), Gallinari (22), and Cousins (20), whereas the O.N. Thugs get Millsap (25), Chandler (30), and Pierce (33).

Of course, this is just the start of trading season. As teams figure out if they're rebuilding (i.e., Sparty) or contending (SMDB), a little more certainty will emerge. And somehow, the O.N. Thugs will keep finding ways to improve their team to make their annual late-season run at the title.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

OT: Baseball Winter Meetings - A tale of Two Sox

Okay, so while I stare at the Bears/Pats game and obsess over the first week of the UPL - Who the F-ck Is Anne Frank? playoffs I figured I'd contribute something to the site and write up a bit on the early returns from the Hot Stove League on behalf of the two footwear-themed teams.

WINNERS:
The "Beantown Bombers"
Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and the rest of the Boston Red Sox lineup. Gonzo in particular looks to have an upgrade from both the ballpark and lineup, as he might actually have to be pitched to next year while also having runners on base. Crawford's upgrade probably wont be as marked, but means he should maintain his value for some time. Youk's value will go up slightly, as the time he'll see at 3B should qualify him for the position in the following year as well as reaping the benefits of the lineup. Its a good month to be OD. Or an Adrian Gonzalez owner.

The "South Side Hit Men, Part II"
The Chicago White Sox needed an offensive upgrade over last year's rotating DH model. While there will always be a bit of a disconnect between the true value and fantasy value of a player, Mark Kotsay proved that sometimes you can have neither but still eat up a great deal of at-bats. To remedy this the Sox added Dunn, and what they hope is his slugging RBI lefty bat. In a move that Keith Law hated on, but that was the most obvious in retrospect, they also locked up what they hope are the last few productive years of Paul Konerko. If the Sox can find a way to upgrade their bullpen without trading Quentin, the Sox could field a lineup that looks something like this...

LF - Pierre
SS - Alexei Ramirez
CF - Rios
DH - Dunn
1B - Konerko
RF - Quentin
C - AJ
2B - Beckham
3B- Morel

Dont bet on Morel producing like Mark Reynolds, he's a contact hitter with plus baserunning skills, but considering that Pierre's RBI weapon is a bunt or a contact swing which led to double-play more often than not. Personally I'm hoping that combined with a solid-bounce back year this means Beckham produces like a true keeper.

And the Bears are getting destroyed by the Patriots, which is depressing me beyond my ability to continue this post. Bear down.

WakeupWithoutTheKing

We have our first blockbuster trade of the UPL Basketball season.

Lebron James going to the Milwaukee Bricks
Joakim Noah and Eric Gordon to Stephan, who will also have to rename his fantasy team. I've suggested WakeupWithoutTheKing as an option.

This will either be the most brilliant or the most idiotic trade in the history of the UPL.

Let's break it down.

LeBron, typical: 29.5 PTS, 1.5 3PM, 49.5% FG, 76% FT, 1.1 OREB, 7.1 REB, 7.5 AST, 1.7 STL, 1 BLK, 2.1A/TO.
LeBron, this year: 22.2 PTS, 0.9 3PM, 44% FG, 79% FT, 0.2 OREB, 6 REB, 8.7 AST, 1.8 STL, 1 BLK, 2.0 A/TO

The major difference? His FG% has dipped, especially from 3. And he's taking about 4 fewer shots (including 2 fewer 3-pointers) per game. Also, his OREB's have gone down quite a bit, as well. Why is this happening? The Heat are playing at a tempo at about 102 points per game, virtually the same as what the Cavs did last year. The problem is that there are more players who actually want to score (and are actually good at it).

So why might you want to hang on to LBJ? His peripheral stats are still darned good. You're picking up an extra AST, though you're giving away an OREB in doing so. Everything else is basically the same. LBJ has likely peaked statistically (since it's really hard to do more than he has done the last few years). But if you believe that the Heat are going to keep playing at 102 points per game (and not 110 PPG), then you may need to temper your scoring expectations. So in that sense, now may be the perfect "sell high" opportunity. And he's not quite as untouchable as he would have been being a 1-man show in Cleveland or wherever else.

Which leads to the 2nd part of the equation. Joakim Noah and EJ Gordon

Gordon, this season: 21.1 PTS, 0.9 3PM, 47.7% FG, 76.6% FT, 0.6 OREB, 3.7 REB, 4.7 AST, 1.3 STL, 0.7 BLK, 1.375 A/TO.
Noah, this season: 15.9 PTS, 0 3PM, 52.6% FG, 77.5% FT, 4.1 OREB, 13.9 REB, 2.6 AST, 1.0, STL, 2.1 BLK, 1.286 A/TO.

Now, these numbers may improve a little bit for Gordon, as he develops (and by all accounts, he's getting better). He's largely limited to being a scorer, for fantasy purposes. And 21.1 PTS is good by any evaluation. However, I'd argue that if you are only going to get about 4 REB and 4 AST, (both below average for a UPL championship-caliber team), then you need to get a little more than 21.1 points (unless he's a real 3PM guy). This is sort of my argument against guys like Rip Hamilton, Jamal Crawford or Jason Terry.

On the other hand Noah has been tearing it up, scoring reasonably well, and leading the league in OREB and REB, and being a definite asset in BLK. He's scoring about 5-6 more points per game than last season, and this is coming from 3 more FG attempts and 2 more FT attempts. The major reason? 9 more minutes per game. Personally, I'd be a little suspect that this will stay the case throughout the season. Why? There's some dude named Boozer that the Bulls paid a lot of money for last season that will be coming back in a few weeks. In addition to scaling back to something like 32 minutes, there may be some other things decreasing. Given Noah's team-oriented nature (and Boozer's black-hole-ish game), he may be deferring on those extra shots on offense, and may give up a few of those REB. We shall see.

Of course, the comparison to similar trades should be made. Last season, there were only minor rumblings when the O.N. Thugs and SuckMyDribblingBalls swung a major trade. The Thugs acquired Kobe Bryant, and send Monta Ellis and David West over to SMDB. At the time, West was ranked somewhere in the high 20's, low 30's, Ellis was ranked in the 40's (coming off injury), and Kobe was ranked 5th, I believe. And Ellis was trending upward at the time. So, the idea is that it would take roughly two 3rd round picks to get a clear first round pick. And since then both parties have been pretty happy with the results. Kobe's done his thing (despite gimping around the last half of the season in 2009-10), Ellis has gone nuts for a bad GS team, and David West keeps churning out games of 19 and 8 with high efficiency.

Now, given that LBJ is much younger than Kobe, in a keeper league, you'd expect a premium to what was paid for Kobe. I'm not sure if Gordon and Noah would be better than Ellis and West. Ellis is clearly better than Gordon (about 5 PTS , 1 more REB, about 2 more STL per game, and 51.1% FG). West is a little older, and has been unselfish (and let Okafor get more established), so his numbers of dropped off a bit this year as he's gone from 36 to 30 minutes per game. Noah is getting about 6 more REB than West right now (scoring slightly favors West). But I'm not sure that the margin between Noah and West will be as high as it is now, once Boozer gets into the mix. Maybe you're getting a slight premium to Ellis/West. But I'd argue that LBJ should be getting a heavier premium to Kobe than that. That isn't to say that this trade doesn't help Stephan's team. Noah is the sort of player that definitely helps you win - single-handedly keeps you competitive in 3 categories, about neutral in PTS, and is a plus FG% guy.

Would an open market for LBJ have fetched more? Jeff - make sure that you're reading this next section, because I have a suspicion that you could get yourself 2 or 3 keeper pieces, which probably makes sense for your franchise. But I think that it would have. So in that sense (and I don't say this often), Jeff made a great trade. I don't know how many times those words show up in the same sentence here on the UPL Blog. So savor it :-)

I'd bet that C-Lauff would have at least thought about Carmelo and David Lee. Reasonable chance he bites on Carmelo and Horford. And he'd definitely move Carmelo and Collison. If you offer LBJ to OD, you can probably get D12 and Raymond Felton. Or Monta Ellis and Tim Duncan. Probably not D12 and Monta Ellis, though. From the O.N. Thugs, you 2 pieces out of Roy, Aldridge, Boozer, and maybe even Westbrook/Lopez. I'd guess that Robby would move 2 pieces out of Rondo, Z-Bo, Bosh, and Gay.

My prediction? Jeff plays this one savvy and moves LBJ again (maybe with another marginal keeper) and locks down 3 legit keepers that he can really build a team around.

Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated topic... Jeff, are you a Trail Blazers fan? They play basketball the right way, and two guys that really do it well are Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge.... and a guy with huge upside is DeMarcus Cousins. I really think that these guys would be a nice set of players to build a strong UPL franchise around...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Assumptions

I'm copying and pasting parts of an e-mail exchange that I'm having with Westy about some basketball stats. Mainly, it's me making fun of John Hollinger's power rating statistic, which has somehow become a fixture on ESPN.com. A second issue worth thinking about is how perfectly smart people (like Westy) can fall into common traps. Basically, on the front page of ESPN.com, there was this slick graphic that showed that the Heat were the top team in the NBA sofar, based on John Hollinger's Power Ratings. And of course, I thought that was crap.

My initial e-mail was intended to give a little ribbing to Westy about his love for "advanced" stats like the stuff that John Hollinger uses. Just one sentence and a picture from ESPN.com:

Westy - I guess that I see why you love your advanced stats and hate winning :-)

Note the "winning isn't everything" lead-in. We don't need wins; we have numbers with decimal points.

Also, note that this is before my man D-Will led a 4th quarter comeback, which in turn led to an upset of the Heat by the Jazz in OT.

Of course Westy's response is that Hollinger uses strength of schedule (SOS), with the idea being implied that a statistician like Hollinger wouldn't post anything as ridiculous as a 5-2 team being better than a 7-0 team, unless there was a good reason. To be honest, I had no idea what Hollinger's methodology was, other than it was spitting out shady results. So I took a peek at what was under the hood by looking at the methodology. And of course, I'm appalled.

So, I shoot off an e-mail to Westy. I make some smart ass comment about how going 4-0 against the Nets, T'Wolves and Sixers, while going 1-2 against the Magic, Celts, and Hornets clearly makes you the best team in the NBA. But more importantly, you notice that the Hornets have a higher SOS than the Heat, yet are ranked well below them by Hollinger (despite winning head-to-head). I'm OK with using margin of victory as a component in team evaluation, but you probably shouldn't use it straight up. At this point, I hadn't scrolled far enough down to see the actual equation being used, but I did see that the Hollinger starts off by talking about margin of victory, which suggests that's the major component of this ranking (which is what it looked like at first glance). Part of my comment to Westy:

Seems that Hollinger's first criteria is margin of victory, probably w/out any sort of cap or deeper view beyond the final score. In that sort of scenario, you're rewarded more for winning by 54 points against the T'Wolves and Nets and losing twice by "only" 3 and 8 points (only 2-2, but still +43), than you would be for, say, going 4-0 and winning by 9 points each game (+36). Don't get me wrong. Margin of victory/loss should count, but once you get beyond, say 15 points, you'd have to show me a strong case for why it matters.

Now, I'm sure that Westy didn't look at the Hollinger methodology very closely, and my guess is that he assumed that a statistician that's associated with the "advanced stat" movement wouldn't use a crude tool. At least, certainly not to the extent that I was insinuating. Westy suggests that Hollinger is actually using offensive and defensive efficiency, which would be the best (simple) predictor of team performance. Westy's probably right about how team efficiency stats would be a pretty good predictor, at least compared to the readily available stats. But the assumption is that Hollinger is using something that has built off of those stats.

I had a suspicion that Hollinger's stuff just couldn't be as useful as Westy was suggesting, with the results it was spitting out. So I went back to the explanation of the methodology. And sure enough, we see this:

RATING = (((SOS-0.5)/0.037)*0.67) + (((SOSL10-0.5)/0.037)*0.33) + 100 + (0.67*(MARG+(((ROAD-HOME)*3.5)/(GAMES))) + (0.33*(MARGL10+(((ROAD10-HOME10)*3.5)/(10)))))

Basically, here's what this equation says. Everyone starts with 100. Then, you look at strength of schedule, and measure how much it differs from .500. Then you divide this difference by 0.037 (no explanation for why he uses this number). Do this for the entire season, weighting it 2/3, and do this for the last 10 games, weighting it 1/3 (so that you're placing greater emphasis on the last 10 games). Also, note that he doesn't explain why he chooses the 2/3 and 1/3 weighting (or 10 games for that matter). Finally, you look at the scoring margin, and add an adjustment of 3.5 points for each game played on the road. Again, do this for the entire season, weighting it 2/3, and for the last 10 games, weighting it 1/3. Seems simple enough. But what does this really tell you?

Look at some recent NBA history, readily available on ESPN.com. Since 2002, NBA teams SOS at the end of the season will range from 0.484 to 0.514. The reason that everyone doesn't have a .500 SOS is that you have unbalanced schedules, and the certain conferences/divisions are stronger than others. But if you take the difference from 0.500, and then divide by 0.037, you find that SOS will impact a team's power rating anywhere from -0.378 to +0.432. Okay. So what?

Well, remember that we're starting off at 100 points. SOS impacts you less than half a point either way. So how do you get teams with ratings of 86.814 (the Wizards so far this year) and 116.15 (the Heat, before their loss to the Jazz)? Well, SOS can be a bit skewed right now, but even with a 0.600 SOS, the contribution to the power rating would only be about 2.7. The only other component is scoring margin. Again, if you look at the stats since 1999, you'll see that the lowest/highest scoring margins have been -11.5 and +10.2 points per game. Remember that SOS contributed somewhere between -0.378 to +0.432 points in power rating, we're seeing how scoring margin contributes about 25 times more. This suggests that over 96% of the power rating comes from scoring margin, and less than 4% comes from SOS. Basically Hollinger's power rating is just point differential with a slight tweak based on SOS. Not quite as advanced as something based on offensive and defensive efficiency.

As for the Heat, and their 116.15 power rating? So far this year, their SOS was a very high .595. Divide by .037, and you get 2.57. So, if 100 is the baseline, their SOS contributes 2.57, then their scoring margin contributes the other 13.58. If you place this in context, and look at the actual results, then the interpretation is that the Heat are the best team in the NBA because a) they've smoked the Nets and T'Wolves and Magic, and have lost two relatively close games. Now, if we were in a game where you took all of the points that a team scored in a season, and then subtracted the points that were scored on them, and then awarded a trophy to the team that had the greatest differential, then scoring margin by itself would be a great stat. But, in a game where you have discrete wins and losses, you really should capture the variance of margins in wins and losses. I'm not inclined to look in depth at creating these measures right now (mainly because I'm lazy). But you should be able to tell that once you look under the hood, this Hollinger power rating isn't quite as advanced as the the slick graphics and front-page placement on ESPN.com would have you believe.

In an ideal world, Westy would be safe in his assumption that something that makes the front page of ESPN.com as something from an "advanced stat guy" would be truly useful. Smart people would actually be putting together useful information that extends existing knowledge. Unfortunately, in our world, people have an incentive to sandbag on the truly useful stuff, and instead, we're exposed to the stuff that can fool most of the people most of the time. I'll give Hollinger the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he's got better stuff that he's keeping under wraps, hopefully because it's proprietary for some NBA team that he's consulting. In fact, he even admits that this power ranking needs some caveats. But I don't think that most folks think that it's as crude as I've (hopefully) demonstrated it to be. After all, when you see that the Heat are 116.150, and the Wizards are 88.814, you have all these decimal points that suggest that there's something smart going on under the hood.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

2010-11 UPL Basketball Fantasy Outlook

As we head off into the latest iteration of UPL Fantasy Hoops, the keeper era is well under way, and we definitely see how the sins and successes of the past have laid a path for the performance of today. The keeper era allows teams to keep 8 out of their 10 starters, which means that only 2 starters and the 4 bench players from a given season need to be replaced. So teams that are good one one year probably won't become awful the next year, barring major injuries. However, there's no guarantee that a championship team one year will automatically do it again the following year.

In fact, in our first two seasons, we've seen some heavy variance from our 1st year podium to our 2nd year podium. Back in 08-09, it was the O.N. Thugs and European Sellouts (aka WakeupWithTheKing) tied for 1st, and Sparty in 3rd (with IamJabrone, Chowtime, and Westy close behind in 4th, and tied for 5th, respectively). However, there was a bit of a shakeup in 09-10. The 4th Jabrones took the title, the O.N. Thugs slipped to 2nd, and SuckmyDribblingBalls rose from 7th place into 3rd. Sparty and Westy stayed in that 2nd tier. But the co-champion WakeupWithTheKing dropped all the way into 8th place. So what we've seen is that there's generally not a ton of movement, but it's possible to have massive rises/drops in performance. And when you look at what happened in UPL Baseball from 2009 to 2010, you'll see that there massive improvement could be even more common.

THE KEEPER STORY

Having said all that about team mobility, keepers matter a lot. If you recall, my analysis of last year's keepers was very favorable for the O.N. Thugs and IamJabrone. However, I allowed myself to be fooled when I placed the Jabrones lower in my actual season preview. In fairness, I thought that he botched the #1 draft pick (he did), and that the Hawks were going to tank (they didn't). Though Westy's team had highly ranked keepers, the makeup of that looked off (lots of age, and a hole as the 8th keeper), and didn't seem like it would be quite as strong as he was the previous season. And the keeper list suggested that WakeupWithTheKing was in for a bit of a struggle last year, which indeed was what happened. So what about 2010-11?

As you look through the rosters, in particular the keeper rosters, you see a clear top tier. IamJabrone and the O.N. Thugs finished 1st and 2nd last year, and are loaded again. When Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer are the lowest rated (by Yahoo! pre-rank) keepers on these two teams, you know that there are 8 solid options to start off. If things play out, like I think they will, we'll probably do a more in-depth breakdown of these two teams in the future.

Right behind these two teams is Love T'Wolves and last year's 3rd place team, SuckMyDribblingBalls. I liked Robby's keeper core from last year, though that hasn't really been added to, they run a legit 6 deep (Durant, Rondo, Bosh, Z-Bo, Gay, Love). Andre Miller and Michael Beasley are somewhat questionable, but could be solid pieces. For SMDB, having the improved D12 and ageless 'Ason Kidd (no J, much like his protegee Ra'on Rondo) leading off, followed by Monta Ellis, David West, and Timmy give a legit top 5. However, the other keepers (Raymond Felton, John Salmons, and Greg Oden) are question marks of varying degree.

I would say that the tier after this looks to be Sparty Rules, WakeupWithTheKing, and Chowtime. These are top-heavy teams with noticeable drops in quality.

Sparty has CP3, Chauncy Billups, and Marcus Camby. So the non-scoring stats should look awfully good. But with Bargnani, Troy Murphy, Jeff Green, Hedo, and Diaw, the rest of the keepers look suspect (at best). But any team with CP3 will have roster flexibility, because that one player will guarantee points in AST and A/TO.

The same story holds for WakeupWithTheKing. Any time you have LBJ, you'll compete because you'll be getting help in so many categories. Add on Steph Curry, Gerald Wallace, and you'll be competitive in rebounding and 3PM. Add on youngsters Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings, and you've got a nice core to start, though they may be a couple years away from really flourishing. OJ Mayo is still only a scorer, but is a reasonable keeper (though you'd like to improve there). The only major question mark is Bynum, with his injury history.

Chowtime is a bit more balanced, and has 4 awesome keepers, and 4 question marks. Any time you can lead off with Dirk, Granger, and Pau, and then follow up with Blake Griffin, you're starting off solid. However, when you go with guys like Manu and Yao, you're hoping for some luck. And I'm not sure that Chris Kaman and Tony Parker feel like keepers on a championship team.

Then you get to Westy's Ballers (or Impresarios or whatever the hell they are now). Given Westy's past UPL Basketball success, you'd assume that he'd be a top half team. But then you look at his keepers. AI 2.0, Big Al, The Other Gasol. A couple older guys in Baron Davis and Paul Pierce. Devin Harris. Anthony Randolph. Paul Millsap. I see some nice pieces. But you don't look at this team and think"podium." I look at this group, and I'm thinking 7th or 8th place.

After that, you run into three bottom-tier teams. Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks, and Phatsnapper all have rebuilding efforts in front of them, of varying degrees. Of the three, I'd say that Phatsnapper has the most talent, given the Nash/Stoudamire combo, but definitely needs to make some trades. The Bricks have a nice group of Eric Gordon, Joakim Noah, Nene, and Aaron Brooks to build around, but definitely need to get an infusion of young talent in there (and may need to try to pull off a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 1 sort of deal).

So off of the keepers, the UPL preview looks something like this:

Likely Championship Contenders: O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone
Possible Championship Contenders: Love T'Wolves, SuckMyDribblingBalls
Outside Shots at the Championship: Sparty, Chowtime, WakeupWithTheKing
Heading for Limbo: Westy's Impresarios
Rebuilding Now: Phatsnapper, Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks

DRAFT AND EARLY SEASON PICKUPS

The next step in the formula is to look at the actual draft, to see how things play out. And I'll be the first person to say it. The draft is huge for rebuilding teams, and for championship contending teams. For rebuilding teams, it's a chance to get at young talent. For championship teams, it's about rounding out your stats. When you brick a draft, you set yourself up for failure. Last year, I put myself behind the 8-ball in the draft when I overslept the draft, and ended up with the best white player available as my auto-pick motif (Spencer Hawes, Peja, etc.). Needless to say, I revamped my bench very early on in the season last year. On the other hand, when you luck out in the lottery like C-Lauff did last year, you get a huge advantage by jumping to the front of the line for superstars-in-waiting like Blake Griffin, who looks to be a double-double machine for the foreseeable future... er. Wait. Check that. You end up with guys like Anthony Randolph who... uh... can't get run on Westy's team.

And an extension of the draft is the early season pickups that you make, as real-life playing time gets sorted out. For rebuilding teams, the goal is to find young potential impact talent, to find potentially underpriced veteran talent, and otherwise tradeable pieces. The goal should be to worry less about rounding out a roster. The contending teams, the goals is to balance that upside with performance in specific stat categories (as the team's stat base should be largely set). So how did teams do?

The winner of the draft was the winner of the lottery, because this year, the lottery winner (Phatsnapper) took the #1 overall NBA draft pick, John Wall. Phatsnapper gets a keeper building block. They also got Evan Turner, who I'm not nearly as high on, but seems to be a reasonable investment. His roster still has a long way to go, but adding on 2 easy keepers makes this draft a win.

IamJabrone's moves have leaned toward stable, veteran players (Crawford, Rashard Lewis, Okur, Ibaka, Augustin). But has found a couple guards with (Augustin and Bledsoe), as he looks for this year's version of Darren Collison. On the other hand, the O.N. Thugs took slightly more balanced route, taking on some youth (Cousins and Favors) and some players for specific stats (Dalembert, Delfino), and buying low on some veterans (Conley, Hickson). Both teams seem to have helped themselves out, though I'm guessing that the benches will be pretty fluid throughout the season. I'd guess that the O.N. Thugs have more attractive trade pieces, and the Thugs seem to be able to pull of a useful move each season. But the draft doesn't really do much for separating the two teams.

I'd argue that Love T'Wolves helped themselves the most out of any non-Phatsnapper team in the draft, picking up 3PM help (Channing Frye and Ben Gordon), as well as some emerging talent in Roy Hibbert and Rodney Stuckey. I think that his draft should create a little separation from that of SMDB, who added a couple solid pieces in Elton Brand (who's been awesome thus far) and Jameer Nelson. However, SMDB seems to have whiffed with this remaining picks (George Hill, Barbosa, Heyward, and Dunleavy).

Chowtime took an interesting route by drafting young with Wesley Johnson, Derrick Favors, Jrue Holliday, Marcus Thornton, and Yi (in addition to the old veteran KG). But has since backtracked, moving Johnson and Favors for guys like Kirk Hinrich and Richard Jefferson. We'll see how that plays out, but the implication is that this is going to be a run for this year, rather than trying to rebuild for 2011-12.

The opposite of what Chowtime did was what Sparty did in the draft. All vets. AK-47, Tyrus Thomas, Brendan Haywood, Jarrett Jack, Mike Miller, Beno Udrih. The implication is that he's trying to win now. However, Sparty's roster is starting to look like the Milwaukee Bricks, plus CP3. I'm not sure if that's enough to win, and that draft doesn't give you as many trade options with rebuilding teams. Westy took a similar approach, hoping for bounce-back seasons from veterans (Caron Butler, Luol Deng, Kleiza), and an improvement due to change in scenery (Dorrell Wright). Unfortunately, Westy's team is looking like it's going to become the Milwaukee Bricks, without CP3. It'll take some savvy moves (and maybe swallowing a bitter pill this year) to keep that from happening.

WakeupWithTheKing has the biggest lottery ticket of the draft in Gilbert Arenas. His roster leans young anyway, so adding some veterans into the mix could help reduce some of that variance. But the rest of the draft doesn't seem to have revealed a difference maker. Similar story for the Bricks and Floor Burns, who may have found some reasonable pieces (Biedrins, Robin Lopez, Drew Gooden for Bricks; Blatche, McGee, Young, and J.R. Smith for Floor Burns). But you don't get the impression that there's going to be a major change from the draft. The major difference is that WakeupWithTheKing started his rebuilding last year (Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Steph Curry who is not Blake Griffin), and is probably going to be back in the top half of the league this year. The same can not be said for Floor Burns or the Bricks.

So where does this have things shake out?

Likely Championship Battle: O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone, Love T'Wolves
Fighting for a Podium Spot: SuckMyDribblingBalls, Chowtime, WakeupWithTheKing
Stuck in Limbo: Sparty Rules, Westy's Impresarios
Rebuilding: Phatsnapper, Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks

Overall, there are a lot of moving parts to consider. You've got 3 teams that should finish in the top half, and 3 teams that will finish in the bottom half. How the 5 teams in the middle compete will really influence how the points are distributed in the league. I have a suspicion that one or two major trades, and perhaps one or two random free agents will influence how everything plays out. Given the relatively tight competition 1 through 8, the makeup of this list could change drastically.

But like I always say, I never bet against the O.N. Thugs.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Wrap-up and Post-Season Awards

Once again, props to the UPL owners who were playing the season out until the last day, when we had a bit of an upset when Phatsnapper took over first place from Hats for Bats, and became the latest UPL multi-title owner. Phatsnapper took a somewhat risky route to the title, deciding to sacrifice multiple categories (SB and SV), and hoped that no one was going to put together an elite season. In the past, I've briefly written about the numbers behind punting on a categories. Part of the thought process is that you only can surrender so many points, and expect to win. In the past, we generally have teams win with somewhere between 114 and 116 points (in 11 or 12 team leagues). If you bump that up to a 13 team league, and assume that teams in contention would probably get most of those extra points, then you'd probably expect 125 to 127 as the magic number you'd need to get to.

Bearing in mind that in a 13 team league, we're looking at 156 possible points, that means that surrendering 30 points is the most you'd want to do. When you punt on a category, you're automatically surrendering 12 points. To give up on SV and SB means that you're surrendering 24 points. This means that across the remaining 10 categories, you need to average a little better than 12 out of 13 points. This means that you'd have to finish 2nd or better across the board, which is awfully tough to do. And even then, you may run into a buzzsaw of a team. If you run into one of the top UPL teams from years past, surrendering a category, much less multiple categories, probably dooms you.

Generally speaking, when you run a strategy where you're surrendering 1 category, it's risky. You have to trust that you're going to come awfully close to maxing out everything else. But, if you execute, you can still pretty much control your destiny. Surrendering 2 categories is a bad strategy, unless you know some other things, namely, whether anyone else is going to also punt on those categories. If you don't know these things, then even if run perfect, there's a chance that you can still get beat. Now, if you know that other teams are going to give up on SB and SV, then this becomes a little more viable, since you can reasonably expect to make some tactical adjustments for a few points.

That said, the execution still matters or the strategy matters. But I'd argue that your optimal strategic move is to assume perfect execution, so that you're not relying the breaks falling your way. If you look at how the breaks went, some specific things went right that you can isolate. Hats for Bats lost out on his skirmish in SLG, a potential 2.5 point swing, and basically played his OBP competition at par (could have gotten another 1.5 points, but could have lost 2 points), when his offense let him down in the last 2 weeks of the season. Similarly, the O.N. Thugs had unexpectedly disastrous stretches from Tim Lincecum (0-5, 8.00/1.80 in August)and Chris Carpenter (2-5, 4.50/1.30 from 8/26 until end of season) that swung the W/L numbers by anywhere from 5 to 7 points. If the breaks had fallen the way of Hats for Bats or the O.N. Thugs, then this could have been a very different result.

But, one thing that the Phatsnapper strategy does is make your execution much easier. From a theoretical sense, you're removing some moving parts from the equation. This lets you devote more of your roster to fewer categories. If you look at the "upward/downward mobility" in the categories, you can see that Phatsnapper was pretty much locked in to his points, save for a few minor skirmishes here and there. On the other hand, the teams that were chasing Phatsnapper were all involved in heavy competition for points, with a lot of possible variance across multiple categories.

That said, I think that's a relatively less interesting discussion than the more pertinent discussion about the UPL trade waters, which I will comment on in a future post. As for the rest of this post? It's time to give out some hardware:

All-UPL First Team:

C: Joe Mauer, Phatsnapper
1B: Albert Pujols, IAmJabrone
2B: Robinson Cano, Phatsnapper
3B: Jose Bautista, Hats for Bats
SS: Troy Tulowitzki, Cheeseheads
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, '90 Reds
OF: Carl Crawford, Cheeseheads
OF: Josh Hamilton, Phatsnapper
UTIL: Joey Votto, Muddy Mush Heads
UTIL: Paul Konerko, SuckMyKnuckleballs
SP: Roy Halladay, Hats for Bats
SP: Adam Wainwright, Phatsnapper
SP: Ubaldo Jimenez, Benver Droncos
SP: David Price, Phatsnapper
SP: Jon Lester, JimmyDixLongballs
RP: Brian Wilson, '90 Reds
RP: Heath Bell, Hats for Bats
RP: Joakim Soria, O.N. Thugs

All-UPL Second Team

C: Victor Martinez, '90 Reds
1B: Miguel Cabrera, O.N. Thugs
2B: Dan Uggla, IAmJabrone
3B: tie, David Wright, O.N. Thugs and Adrian Beltre, Westy's Sluggers
SS: Hanley Ramirez, Black Sox
OF: Ryan Braun, SuckMyKnuckleballs
OF: Matt Holliday, Milwaukee Whiffers
OF: Adam Dunn, O.N. Thugs
UTIL: Jayson Werth, Black Sox
UTIL: Adrian Gonzalez, JimmyDixLongballs
SP: Felix Hernandez, Phatsnapper
SP: Roy Oswalt, Milwaukee Whiffers
SP: C.C. Sabathia, IamJabrone
SP: Josh Johnson, Black Sox
SP: Justin Verlander, Black Sox
RP: Mariano Rivera, SuckMyKnuckleballs
RP: Rafael Soriano, Cheeseheads
RP: Billy Wagner, Milwaukee Whiffers

All-UPL Team Killers

C: Matt Wieters, Benver Droncos
1B: Justin Morneau, Benver Droncos
2B: Chase Utley, Westy's Sluggers
3B: Mark Reynolds, IamJabrone
SS: Jimmy Rollins, Benver Droncos
OF: Jacoby Ellsbury, IamJabrone
OF: Justin Upton, '90 Reds
OF: Jason Bay, SuckMyKunckleballs
UTIL:Matt Kemp, Phatsnapper
UTIL: Dustin Pedroia, SuckMyKunckleballs
SP: Zack Greinke, Phatsnapper
SP: Josh Beckett, SuckMyKunckleballs
SP: Javy Vazquez, free agent (kept by '90 Reds)
SP: Wandy Rodriguez, '90 Reds
SP: Scott Baker, free agent (kept by Westy's Sluggers)
RP: Bobby Jenks, JimmyDixLongballs
RP: Johanthan Broxton, IAmJabrone
RP: Chad Qualls, free agent (kept by '90 Reds)

Team of the Year: Phatsnapper
Manager of the year: Pauly (honorable mention, Rup and CJ)
UPL MVP - Josh Hamilton, Phatsnapper
UPL Cy Young - Roy Halladay, Hats for Bats
UPL Fireman Award - Brian Wilson, '90 Reds
UPL Rookie Pitcher - Neftali Feliz, Phatsnapper
UPL Rookie Hitter - Buster Posey, Cheeseheads
UPL Out of Nowhere Pitcher - Mat Latos, '90 Reds
UPL Out of Nowhere Hitter - Jose Bautista, Hats for Bats

2010-11 UPL Hoops: The Decision

EDIT: THE DRAFT HAS BEEN MOVED TO 8:45 PM, BUT STILL ON SUNDAY OCT. 24.

So it doesn't look like we've got much in the way of new features for the 2010-11 UPL Basketball: The Decision. But we are continuing with the UPL Draft Lottery, the results of which we will be announcing later in this post. The draft itself will be in prime time for the first time ever. Given the difficulty we've had with Saturday morning draft times, we've made an executive decision to move the draft to Sunday, October 24, at 7:30 pm (central), in prime time.

What this means is that we need to get our keepers e-mailed to me a week in advance, by Sunday, October 17th. After you sign up for this year's league, you can look at last year's results and see who is on your rosters. Also, trades can be made - contact me via e-mail, and I'll send out a notice to the other owners for evaluation.

And without further ado, the results of the 2010 UPL Draft Lottery. Based on last year's order of finish, each team receives a number of "lottery tickets" in this season's draft. The numbers that correspond to each team are randomly assigned. Each teams will receive the following number of tickets.

Team	Rank	"Tickets"
Phatsnapper	11	1667
IamJabberjaw	10	1515
Floor Burns	9	1364
WakeupWithTheKing	8	1212
Chowtime	7	1061
Love T'Wolves	6	909
Westy's Ballers	5	758
Sparty Rules	4	606
SuckMyDribblingBalls	3	455
O.N. Thugs	2	303
IamJabrone	1	151
TOTAL	66	10000

The process is similar to the procedure used in the past, and is detailed here and here. This year, Jeff, C-Lauff, Westy, and OD provided the numbers for the winning lottery tickets. The results are as follows:

Picking 11th: IamJabrone. Last year's defending champions are choosing last in the 1st round.

10th: O.N. Thugs. Things progress according to plan, as the 6-time UPL Hoops champions pick at the end of the draft again.

9th: SuckMyDribblingBalls. Again, the order of draft is continuing on as one would expect.

8th: Sparty Rules. Still no changes, as the lottery remains on track.

7th: Westy's Ballers. The lottery is still on track.

6th: Love T'Wolves. So far each of the picks are what the statistics would predict.

5th: Chowtime. Last year's 7th place team is picking 5th this year, as expected. This is the most predictable draft that we've ever seen in the UPL.

4th: Floor Burns. Finally, a minor shakeup. Last year's 9th place team (3rd to last) is picking 4th. This means that WakeupWithTheKing has won one of the three lottery slots, in a minor upset.

3rd: IamJabberJaw. Last year's 10th place team is picking 3rd, which means that WakeupWithTheKing will be jumping up at least 2 spots.

2nd: WakeupWithTheKing. The lucky streak as run out, but moving up two spots in the draft is a nice little bonus. And more importantly, this means that...

1st: Phatsnapper. For the 2nd time this week, Phatsnapper has won a UPL event. He starts off the week pulling off a last day victory in UPL Baseball, and today, he has won the 2010 UPL Basketball Draft Lottery. Congrats to Rup.

Phatsnapper is on the clock.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Dark Days Behind

It's been 5 months now. And I think that I'm finally ready to talk about it. At first, I was in denial. I can't believe that it happened. Then anger. I kept my composure on the surface, but underneath the calm exterior, I was fuming. I blamed others. Mikey. The airlines. God. But that went away. There wasn't much bargaining. There isn't much to bargain with when it's you versus numbers on a computer screen. Instead, I continued straight into depression. For 5 months, I replayed scenarios in my head, wondering how I could have let things fall apart like that. But today, I have reached the final stage of grief. Today, I accept what has happened, and am prepared to move forward.

What am I talking about?

Fantasy hoops. Specifically, 2009-10 UPL Fantasy Basketball. I will tip my cap to C-Lauff for the win - he took advantage (sort of) of his lottery victory, and put together a very solid team, that persevered despite the loss of shooting guard Gilbert Arenas.

However, let me set the record straight.

C-Lauff writes:

"As much as Roland wanted everyone to think that it was his to lose, I've had him teed up for a while in the AST and OREB categories, which is where the season was won and lost. Obviously, it was close and could have went either way, but I don't think it was as a sure thing as Mr. Thug wanted us to believe."

That statement is out and out wrong. In some sense, basketball is the fantasy sport that you have the most control over, because the performance is somewhat predictable, whereas even in baseball, events like HR and SB (and even R and RBI) happen so sporadically that you get a lot of variance. But you have to play the games for the predictability to matter. If you look at the compete standings, you will see a shortage of games played on my end. Specifically, three games short, and they came at big-man positions (which you can't see). This league came down to AST and OREB, which C-Lauff is correct about. However, from the situation that we were in, he could not have won both, had both teams executed properly. But we'll get to that later.

The easy answer is that I made a mistake in my lineup on the last day of the season. I was making final adjustments the night before, as I was flying up to Chicago for Mikey's (I Giocatori from UPL Football) wedding. Basically, I thought that I had Taj Gibson in the lineup, but had not saved the changes properly. Instead, Carlos Boozer took a DNP. I was so sure that I had Gibson in the lineup, that when I was driving from the airport to the north suburbs, I explained to Mikey that I had Gibson in the lineup. And then I got on to the internet and saw that Gibson had a huge game, pulling down 7 OREB. I figured that the title was locked. Of course, when I logged in, I saw that I actually have Boozer in there, and that I needed a miracle from some guy named Reggie Williams. That was the start of the denial. And actually, we went into anger awfully quickly. I started being upset about flying up on Wednesday night to be able to help out with errands on Thursday before a Friday wedding (which C-Lauff blew off, by the way), costing me a 5-peat. But as I look back, I reach some level of acceptance.

But even before the poor execution on the last day, the Jazz had hurt me, with Boozer and D-Will taking a couple other DNP's, which messed up my endgame scenario. Basically, I was staggering my games so that I could get to 163 games each at C and UTIL, and then play 2 players on the same night, so that I could cheat the 2 extra games. This is how you see teams get to 822 games played (and in case anyone didn't know that originally, I've let the cat out of the bag). With the Boozer DNP's going on, I ended up unable to max out my GP. Additionally, D-Will's DNP's in the last week (I actually had to pick up and play Kirk Hinrich in the last week), set things back in AST. But even I had set it up so that I'd come in with a safe landing by the tightest of margins. So what was the endgame that I had setup?

Basically, I knew that if I won either AST or OREB over C-Lauff, that I would win. The calculus was pretty simple, as those were the only categories that were in play. However, about 3 weeks before the end of the season, I saw that AST was likely going C-Lauff's way, as he was pushing that category big time. He lucked out with Darren Collison's play after the CP3 injury, and was fortunate that CP3 was shut down for the season, which extended Collison's contributions. So, he does this by going after guys like Jrue Holliday, and Shaun Livingston. At this point, I make a semi-bluff by acquiring Mike Conley (who actually started playing well in the 2nd half of the season). The idea was that he was going to push hard for AST, then OREB would open up for me (since he was using in his UTIL spots to get AST, while I'd be using my UTIL spots for OREB). So, I quietly started pushing OREB, coming back from about 50-60 OREB back into a dead heat. Plus, I'd have a moderate chance to still hold him off on AST, if D-Will and/or Westbrook went off a couple games. And, I even put out a semi-bluff on the UPL Blog, talking about AST to a great extent. The idea was to go hard after OREB on my end. In reality, going after AST was going to be hard. I moved Brandon Jennings for Tyrus Thomas in an ill-fated attempt to get more BLK and OREB. So, I probably didn't have the horses to hold off a team that was devoting both UTIL spots to AST, which C-Lauff was doing a lot of toward the end of the season.

Instead, we ran into a worst-case scenario. I get a couple DNP's from D-Will so that he can rest for the playoffs. Based on season averages, this probably costs me about 16 AST. If D-Will goes off in one of those games, then we're talking about a potential 25 AST swing. The final standings had me 25 AST behind C-Lauff. So, the analysis that I had was about right. But that wasn't as big of a deal as D-Will's then-teammate, Carlos Boozer.

Boozer took the DNP's that D-Will did, which ended up costing me extra games in UTIL and C. I had benched guys so that I could arrange the lineups to get me up to 163 games for both UTIL and C. Then, you'd play 2 games the same night to get you to 165 games. However, when Boozer took those DNP's, that left me at 162, and the only night that had two players going was early, so that stuck me behind my strategy. And then to cap it off, on the last night of the season, I figured that Boozer would get the night off, so I'd roll with Taj Gibson.

Only it didn't happen. I mean, not getting the lineup right is clearly user error. But this does challenge the notion that I was "teed up" in OREB, both tactically (not getting the lineup right for the last day of the season), as well strategically (my endgame move). C-Lauff had no way of knowing that I was surrendering the point in AST, but I think that he didn't appreciate how fortunate he got with OREB. My estimates, based on Boozer playing out the string, and me maximizing my games with 822 had me with about a 10 OREB buffer. Instead, I end up with an inferior play for 2 games at PF (which cost me about 3-4 OREB), but more importantly, I left 3 games on the table, all of which were intended to be PF/C, for which 9-12 OREB is a reasonable number. Given the margin in OREB was 6, the endgame scenario that I had envisioned was a very reasonable one.

As far as what I was saying about C-Lauff hurting himself with his moves, what I was talking about was his overlooking of OREB in terms of his lineup choices (he went all out for AST, when he needed to win both - in retrospect it ended up good for him, but had I played optimally, it would not have). A major part of this was that he kept Anthony Randolph on his roster for the majority of the season, and kept Gilbert Arenas on there, as well. Evidence that even C-Lauff acknowledges that the Randolph move was a mistake was that he dropped him in the last week. More importantly, I'd assume that he could have gotten a taker at a slight discount for Arenas early on in November, before the gun issues started. And if not, then at a larger discount after the gun issues. Arenas was not a crucial contributor for the Jabrones, particularly once Collison emerged. Arenas should have been expendable for a championship run. Obviously, things worked out great, as C-Lauff holds on to Arenas, and wins the ring. However, I'd argue that not seeing Arenas as a an expendable piece was a strategic error, and that C-Lauff got a little lucky with the outcome. But regardless, he's the 2010 UPL Basketball champ, and he's in a good spot to be strong again for the 2011 championship. Of course, the O.N. Thugs will have something to say about that, as well others like Love T'Wolves, WakeupWithTheKing, and Sparty.

In any case, this was the endgame recap that I had promised. Next up? 2010-11 UPL Basketball previews, and hopefully lottery results.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Press Release - The Jimmy Dix Longballs 8-25-2010

It is with mixed emotion - but great excitement - that the Jimmy Dix Longballs announces the return of Colby Rasmus to its ranks. The 24 year old Rasmus was traded away from the Longballs in the preseason as part of a package deal for B.J. Upton, whose speed filled a role that the team struggled with in 2009. The addition of Mr. Rasmus and his .343 on base percentage and .504 slugging percentage is a welcome compliment to our other young outfielders, Mike Stanton, Nelson Cruz and Chris Coughlan. In order to make space on the 25 man roster, outfielder Marlon Byrd was released to the waiver wire. The 33 year old Byrd was having a strong year, posting a .365/.453 stat line and most notably had a very strong April and May which accounted for much of the Jimmy Dix Longballs early success. We wish him the best in his future endeavors, but feel strongly that the move for Rasmus was the best for the long-term contention of the Longballs.

We also anxiously await the return of our many players from the DL, including shortstop Rafael Furcal, right handed reliever JJ Putz and outfielders Nelson Cruz and Chris Coughlan. Coughlan is expected to make a full recovery, though he will not return to the field until 2011. The Jimmy Dix Longballs currently sit 4th in the UPL standings, and are searching for the spark to carry the team through a strong rush to the end of the season.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend....

Okay so the title of this post has nothing to do with the actual post. Sorry. But today the Jimmy Dix Longballs designated Mark Buehrle for assignment. As someone who has been a die-hard Buehrle fan (I even have a Buehrle authentic jersey, courtesy of friends of a friend, who are now on probation for their part in a jersey theft and resale ring) its a tough day, but his K/9 and WHIP were just too ugly to stick with as a fantasy starter. I wish him nothing but the best success in real life, and as the Sox are in a pennant race I would not begrudge anyone who picks him up and catches him as he gets hot. I hope he helps bring us back to the postseason, where the Yankees will beat us like they caught us robbing the new Yankee Stadium. Although I reserve the right as a fantasy manager to write a letter, Dan Gilbert style, about him if he helps another team beat me. Just saying.

The Anatomy of a Blockbuster: A New (Cabr)Era

ACT I - SOME HISTORY

Trades involving truly big names are hard to come by in the UPL, where teams have historically preferred the status quo. The O.N. Thugs are generally not a huge player on the trade market, preferring to tinker in free agency. They made a big trade when they were sure they had a loaded offense early on, and traded for Pedro Martinez back in 2003, sending over Manny and another hitter (Robbie Alomar, maybe?) to OD. Even after the trade, the O.N. Thugs featured probably the best offense in the history of UPL baseball, winning 64 out of 66 possible points on offense (11 team league). They team featured Bonds, Pujols, and Delgado, and also had Reggie Sanders, Jose Guillen, and Preston Wilson hit over 30 HR (Wilson had 141 RBI that year). Add in speed from Carl Crawford, Scott Podsednik, Rafael Furcal, and a speculative pickup of Mark Teixeira, and you had a ridiculous offense. This team ended up hitting .391/.527 (the team put up a .918 OPS - yikes!), with 1031 R, 294 HR, 980 RBI, and 125 SB.

Over the last few years, the O.N. Thugs have not quite been able to replicate this offense (not even the 2004 O.N. Thugs, probably the best team in UPL Baseball history, though they were built on pitching first). It got to the point in 2009, where a failure on offense (ironically, led by Carlos Delgado's injuries - well, maybe not so ironic given his age) led to the lowest finish ever by the O.N. Thugs, 4th place. So something had to give. The O.N. Thugs had been fairly disciplined in their approach to the keeper era, working to acquire young, high ceiling talent, which is in stark contrast to the O.N. Thugs' traditional road to victory, which employed established veterans. They had also managed to hang on to their waiver priority, and managed to luck into Buster Posey, when he was dropped by IamJabrone, right at the start of his hot streak.

The Cheeseheads were a team that had been stuck in the middle of the pack throughout it's UPL history, and the keeper era was no exception. This team featured some very high-end talent, in the form of Miguel Cabrera, Troy Tulowitzki, Carl Crawford. They also had some potentially solid parts in Geovany Soto and Adam Lind. And they had some veterans who were going to be kept for a few more years Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Pena, and Vernon Wells. Unfortunately, the pitching looked suspect - Matt Cain was the best of the bunch, and only Rafael Soriano was actually performing well at closer (though John Axford had established himself as the closer in MIL). Gavin Floyd, Clayton Richard, Ted Lilly, Ian Kennedy, Randy Wells, Anibal Sanchez, and Jason Vargas didn't strike you as the sort of guys that you wanted to build a franchise around - they were nice pieces to take a chance on, and hope for the best.

ACT II - REBUILDING

The O.N. Thugs were chatting with JimmyDix, about potential trade ideas, when JimmyDix noted that Cheeseheads were looking to rebuild. Immediately, the thought of Miggy being available in the UPL caught the imaginations of both the O.N. Thugs and JimmyDix. The O.N. Thugs had inquired about Carlos Pena earlier in the season, but talks never moved past an initial, random offer. But now, with rebuilding officially on the way, some thoughts started swirling. The major goal was to be able to make a move for a top tier player (either Miggy or Tulo), without sacrificing the ability to win in 2010. Unfortunately, right before the trade talks started up, Jake Peavy had sustained a season-ending injury, which left the O.N. Thugs with only Lincecum, Carpenter, Kershaw, and Cecil as starters, Vincente Padilla recently picked up, and with Volquez about the come off the DL. So, starting pitching really couldn't be moved.

At this point, Corey Hart was at the tail end of his HR binge, so the Thugs were looking to sell high. And the Thugs also had a fairly long list of keepable talent of varying quality and age that could have been moved (Russell Martin, Elvis Andrus, Dexter Fowler, Shin-Soo Choo, Daniel Bard, Aroldis Chapman, Joe Nathan) without really hurting the 2010 team's chances (Choo was on the DL at that point). Some initial offers involving Corey Hart as a major component failed (despite the Cheeseheads presumed affinity for all things Milwaukee). And a counter-offer was made on July 17. Miguel Cabrera for Buster Posey and Clayton Kershaw.

At this point, the basic price was set. Two high end, young players. And the O.N. Thugs were pretty sure that a deal could get done, so confident that they had sent out a message to JimmyDix on the night of July 17 indicating a likely press conference within the next 48 hours. But the problem of the O.N. Thugs' lack of SP still remained.

ACT III - LOOKING FOR PLAN B

Posey was gaining national recognition, and was putting up .410/.570 sort of production, which is ridiculous at C. But he was somewhat superfluous at C, with Jorge Posada still producing well. Of course the raw production of Cabrera made that sort of move palatable. So that part of the equation was OK. But Clayton Kershaw was a different story. His 2010 stats were awfuly good: 10-5, 2.96/1.22 with 138K in 130.2IP. But the key stat was "22." As in his age in 2010. But the dearth of SP for the Thugs made the other part of the equation too expensive. The Thugs decided that this couldn't happen, unless some SP could be acquired, or a different piece was involved.

At this point, Volquez had made his first start, and looked spectacular. So moving a starting pitcher became a possibility, but the Thugs front office remained firm on Kershaw, particularly if Posey was going to be involved. So there was some work to be done.

So, Brett Cecil was the piece that the Thugs tried to market. Cecil, for whatever reason, hadn't caught the imagination of a lot of fantasy folks, who prefer Ricky Romero as the sexy prospect in TOR. But Cecil was 1 year younger, was 8-5 in over 100IP in 2010, and had a very respectable 3.89/1.16 with 6.3 K/9. He also had a strikeout pedigree from the minors (228K in 228.1 IP) similar to Jon Lester's (446K in 483.2 IP).

So a counter-offer was made on July 18. Buster Posey, Brett Cecil, and Aroldis Chapman for Miggy. This was three pieces, two of which were producing at the major league level, and one a large lottery ticket. This trade was quickly rejected, and the O.N. Thugs quietly hit the pavement, looking for pitching help, that would have made losing Kershaw palatable. An inquiry about Roy Oswalt were made to the Whiffers , who were in last place and should have been looking to rebuild. Chapman and Bard were made available. But the Whiffers politely declined. An inquiry was made about Shawn Marcum, but the price was a bit on the high side. The JimmyDix announced that they were possibly moving Cliff Lee. Some talks started, with Bard, Cecil, Chapman, and Peavy being offered for Cliff Lee and B.J. Upton (who JimmyDix has been shopping). But that offer was rejected on 7/25. At this point, there had been no new communications from Cheeseheads. And without the ability to find SP to replace the production of Kershaw, the Thugs could not pull the trigger on the trade and still feel comfortable about their chances in 2010. It appeared that Miggy was not going to be an O.N. Thug.

ACT IV - RESOLUTION

At this point, the Miggy for Posey and Kershaw trade had been in play for 8 days. Trades are automatically canceled by Yahoo! after 10 days. The O.N. Thugs' front office made the decision that they weren't going to bid against themselves in this trade. A quick look across the UPL suggested that the only teams that had the pieces to really make a run at Miggy were Phatsnapper and Black Sox. But, it appeared that Phatsnapper was content with his offense , and neither Phatsnapper, nor Black Sox, seemed inclined to move their core, young pitching. JimmyDix had deemed Lester to be untouchable, and would have been selling his other young talent at a low price. Other teams teams like IamJabrone, Westy's Sluggers, or '90 Reds didn't have the depth of keepable, young talent to move.

At the same times, they were keeping an eye on 2011, and was pretty content with the direction of the team. Posey and Posada formed the best quality/depth at C in the UPL. Dunn, Jeter, Wright, Choo, and Markakis could be counted on for solid production. Andrus was the SS-in-waiting. And the core of the pitching staff was still Lincecum, Kershaw, Carpenter, Volquez, Soria, K-Rod, and Bailey. Being able to hold on to Nathan and Bard until mid-March would add certainty to the keeper decisions. And choosing from Cecil, Willingham, Hart, and Fowler as the 18th keeper wouldn't be a terrible option.

The Thugs were ready to move forward with this team, so they moved Russell Martin for Howie Kendrick, mainly with the intention of getting some value for Martin, and having Kendrick help make up some games at 2B, with a slight chance of being a keeper in 2011. The front office figured that they'd be able to create some offense through team management, and making up another 4 or 5 games at 2B would be good enough.

The Thugs were about the prepare a thank-you note for Cheeseheads, and officially decline the trade, when another trade offer showed up. Buster Posey, Aroldis Chapman, Daniel Bard, and Joe Nathan for Miggy and Joel Zumaya. Joel Zumaya was completely irrelevant in this trade. He was an injury prone set-up man, who was stuck behind Jose Valverde even when he was healthy. What required a little thought was the inclusion of Bard and Nathan, over Cecil.

Bard was already contributing this year (1.84/0.86 with 51K in 49IP), and pitched at a similar level in 2008. The rampant speculation amongst Red Sox folks (in particular Bill Simmons, which makes it folk wisdom amongst the masses) was that Papelbon was going to be moved at some point, since someone was going to sign him to a 4-year, $56 million sort of deal in free agency, and that Bard was going to take over at some point in 2011 or 2012 at the latest. The story with Joe Nathan was that he had Tommy John surgery back in April, and was out of 2010. His rehab had started, and he was projected to be ready for spring training. His value was in his contract. He was signed through 2011, with a club option for 2012. This meant that the Twins were going to have him as their closer, as long as he was healthy. For small market teams, money matters, and a guy making $11 million was going to get first dibs at a money position. Combined, these two looked to be valuable pieces, particularly in 2011. If either one of them came through, then someone like K-Rod could be shopped for a frontline player.

What tipped the deal was that none of the pieces, save Posey, would really change the championship calculus for the O.N. Thugs in 2010. Chapman's a 2011-12 lottery ticket. Nathan was on the DL all year, and is a 2011 piece. Bard was helping the rate stats, but similar production could be found. Obviously, losing Posey makes C a much more tenuous position for the O.N. Thugs. But the thought is that Miggy's numbers would more than make up for it in 2010. And the biggest factor for the O.N. Thugs' 2010 chances is that neither Kershaw nor Cecil were moved (which has been doubly important with Volquez being smacked around his last 2 starts). So, with that a new (Cabr)Era in O.N. Thugs history has started.

EPILOGUE?

The O.N. Thugs still have some speculative talent, to go with the established talent. Miggy, Wright, Dunn, and Choo appear to be the offensive cornerstones. Jeter and Posada have at least one more year of keepable value, and Andrus is the SS-in-waiting. Markakis is still a bit of a question mark, but will be adequate at the very least. Lincecum, Carpenter, Kershaw, Cecil, and Volquez anchor a strong rotation. Soria, K-Rod, and Bailey form a good bullpen. And the Thugs have two more spots to choose from Hart, Willingham, Fowler, Kendrick, Peavy, Porcello, Morrow, and Venters. This makes for a competitive keeper roster, particularly on the pitching side of things. This was very similar to how the O.N. Thugs entered 2010. With a major difference being the addition of Miguel Cabrera.

The Cheeseheads may still be rebuilding, but at the very least add more depth to their discussion. Posey, Tulo, Crawford, Soto, Soriano, Ike Davis, and Carlos Pena seem to be players that you have to keep. Probably Adam Lind, as well. With regard to pitching, Cain, Rafael Soriano, Axford, Chapman, Bard, and Nathan are guys that will be committed to, and Clayton Richard, Gavin Floyd are likely keepers, as well. After that, you will have two choices between guys like Vernon Wells, Raul Ibanez, Ian Kennedy, David Aardsma, Jason Vargas, Randy Wells, and Ted Lilly. The story of this trade for the Cheeseheads is that they will get to choose from a deeper crop of keepers with much higher ceilings for 2011 and beyond.

As for the future? That's still to be written. If this ends up with another O.N. Thugs Championship, then the trade's a resounding victory. When you're gunning for championships, you take your runs when you can without wrecking your future, your happy. And even if the future for the pieces you move end up being great, so long as your team is still great, you're still happy.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Mid-Season Report Cards - The Short Bus

To wrap up, let's take a look at the short bus. Note that these places in the standings have adjusted slightly from when I started giving out Mid-Season grades.

Cheeseheads - 10th Place

Strong Moves: Found a lot of offensive help in the draft (Adrian Beltre, Corey Hart, Vernon Wells). Unfortunately, this didn't address the major weaknesses of the team coming in, which was pitching. Got some much needed youth in Ike Davis. Found Kelly Johnson early, who's been very good at 2B. Got younger with Gavin Floyd, who has been good over his last 9 starts (after being dreadful to start the season). Found Clayton Richard and Ian Kennedy early on, both of whom are young and have been solid. Found John Axford, who seems to have a solid hold on the Brewers' closing role.

Boner Moves: Struck out with the arms in his draft. Gave up on Corey Hart way too early. Taking on Ibanez seems to be moving against the strategy of getting younger, as Granderson was younger (but has been on a downward trend the last few years).

Future Outlook: Huge question mark with the Miguel Cabrera trade, which is a classic high-risk, high-reward situation. Posey and Bard immediately step in and become legitimate starters, and both have super high ceilings. If Nathan comes back in 2011 as the closer, then the bullpen is stabilized, and some trade pieces can emerge. Chapman is a huge lottery ticket, that you won't find out about until half-way through 2011, at the earliest. In addition to these 4 players, there are some very solid veteran, keepers to build around longterm (Crawford, Tulo, Soto), as well as in a 2-3 year frame (Soriano, Wells, Pena) on the offensive side. Some decent, young pitching can also be built on (Cain, Richard, Kennedy, Floyd), and there are some closers to round out the roster (Soriano, Axford, Aardsma). Overall quality of the roster needs to continue to improve to move into podium contention.

Mid-term Grade: B. Is currently in the middle of getting younger. Has found some nice, young parts. But the grade probably should be an incomplete - the real result is what happens with Posey, Bard, Chapman, and Nathan.

Westy's Sluggers - 11th Place

Strong Moves: Drafting Bucholz, Loney, and Latos, which gives quality and youth. Picking up Ike Davis, and using him to get Beltre. Keeping Alex Rios from last year, who has been very good this year. Carl Pavano and Brett Myers have been solid veteran contributors. Finding a likely keeper C (Martin) at a low cost (a 3rd 2B in Kendrick).

Boner Moves: Giving up on Latos too early (while hanging on to questionable pieces - who the hell's Scott Baker?). Selling Matt Holliday too cheaply (and has been intent on doing so for a while, it seems). Moving their best pitcher (Lester) for Kinsler, who's redundant at 2B and only so-so at UTIL, without an obvious follow-up plan. Not addressing closer effectively enough in the draft.

Future Outlook: This roster needs an overall quality increase, and needs to get younger. Dotel, Pavano, Abreu, Hunter, Young, and Berkman are all 33+ this year. Lackey, Webb, Beltre, and Utley are 31. Myers is 30. Really, only Loney (26), Bucholz (26), Nunez (27), Martin (27), Kinsler (28), Sizemore (28), Rios (29) look to be keepers under 30, and none are exactly young anymore (and some of serious questions, like Sizemore). This means that some trades need to happen, otherwise, this team will be in purgatory.

Mid-term Grade: C-. The drop-off from 2009 is stark, though many of the players from 2009 had career years. An honest assessment of 2009 success should have prompted more urgency in the trade market, particularly with Abreu, Hunter, and Berkman. Got unlucky with injuries at 2B, so there wasn't a real opportunity to get value for Kendrick. But when C-Lauff starts mocking you and telling you to "Have fun in 19th place," then maybe you need to get things straightened out.

Muddy Mush Heads - 12th Place

Strong Moves: Found Mike Leake, who looks to be a nice, young arm. Rode some success from Carlos Silva, who has since cooled a bit. Has gotten solid pitching efforts from Benoit and Gorzelanny.

Boner Moves: Got off to a horrible start by gambling on Jermaine Dye as a keeper. Gave up on Chris Young way too early. Has dropped Cueto and Tommy Hunter, who have both been solid and are still young. It appears that the Derek Lee trade isn't going to be a winning one, as Jonathan Sanchez has continued his solid play.

Future Outlook: Probably should have rode Cueto and Hunter for longer stretches - those two would look awfully nice with Johan Santana, Phil Hughes, and Mike Leake as your starting rotation in 2011. This is a very old offense, with guys like Carlos and Derek Lee, Ichiro, Furcal, Brian Roberts, and Chone Figgins being relied on heavily. The only legit, young star on offense appears to be Joey Votto. There isn't enough value on Roberts or either Lee to get a worthwhile trade done. However, there may be some willing takers for the speed.

Mid-term Grade: C-. This team needed to have a major overhaul, and get at least a little lucky. Neither has really happened. In fact, the good moves are relatively small in magnitude, in comparison to the Cueto and Hunter drops.

Chicago Zambroneheads - 13th Place

Strong Moves: Acquired Matt Holliday and spare parts for Michael Young and Grady Sizemore, which has worked out very well. Solid production from Tyler Clippard, Mike Pelfrey, Jose Guillen, Alex Gonzalez, and Ty Wigginton, all of whom were found in free agency. Getting some speed from Scott Podsednik in the draft.

Boner Moves: Gave away David Ortiz, right before Papi righted the ship. Wasn't able to find any value for Ibanez. Bad draft restricted the ability to make trades to improve team. Has held on to Billy Wagner (who is retiring after this season) too long - the gameplan should have been to hope for a strong start from Wagner, and then move him out in May/June to get good value. Now, may not be able to get as much for a 2 month rental.

Future Outlook: There are always going to be hiccups with expansion, and this team needed to be perfect to get into the top half this year. The goal is to end up with 18 reasonable keepers, and try to attack in 2011 or 2012. The team started with about 10 or so of these players, and at this point, only have 8 or 9 on the roster, so this has been a bad opening set. Looking at ways to get value should be the key between now and the trade deadline.

Mid-term Grade: C-. Even if the moves had been perfect, there's a chance that this team could have been stuck in the bottom 1/3 of the league. But in reality, a few small wins was overwhelmed by one big mistake (Big Papi).

-Chairman (O.N. Thugs)