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)