Roster Grid

I'll update this occasionally as I have time.  It's the roster grid form drafts past.  Good tool to see what is going on in our division.

Linked to the right as well.

Non Critical Player Card File Updates

Wanted to keep a log of any changes.  These are non critical updates and only require a new download of the file if you want to utilize them.

Changes - 11:00 AM, February 7
- Mass update to pitcher defensive ratings
- Added team to the stat lines

Changes - 2:30 PM, February 6
- Included Team Name for Historical ATB stat lines
- Minor adjustments to Traffic Light parameters for BB/9

Quick Draft Recap

I won't be doing this regularly, but thought it would be interesting to look at some draft strategies so far.  Of course, many of these teams can fit into more than one category at this point; this was simply my initial reaction and purely for fun.

Team Balance
Jeff B - Maddux and Josh Gibson
Mike S - Pedro and King
Steve C - Ruth and Bernard
TJ O - Gehrig and Blanton
Dave K - Bonds and Pop

Pitching and Defense
Fred B - Big Train and Collins
Brian B - Addie and the Flying Dutchman
Brad H - Koufax and Charleston


Positional Scarcity
Mike G - Morgan and Brett
Paulie N - Boudreau and Nap


Great Deadball Hitters, Defense Matters
Justin B - Speaker and McGraw
Lou P - Cobb and Shaffer
Sean S - Arky and Shoeless
Brad P - Barnes and Brouthers (not the book store)

Offensive Power
Allen - Foxx and Dickey
Jay H - Hornsby and ? (hasn't made Rd 2 pick)
Joe T - Musial and McCovey
Joe V - Cash and Ott


Pitching Pitching Pitching
Jason S - Randy J and Christy


Complete Offense
Ivar A - Joe D and Bagwell
Jason B - Mantle and Leonard
Justin P - Dunlap and McGwire
Matt B - Tip and Canadian Walker
Shotgun - Teddy and Duffy

Rosters Beginning to be Posted

With two rounds complete (or close enough) I've started to load up all of your team pages and rosters.  As with years past, please check your players for data entry errors.  Any errors found before the start of the season will be fixed.  Once the season begins, your locked into the faulty player.

The reports are linked in various places on the blog and site, all under "League Results" headings.

Draft Procedure Clarification

I have done a poor job of explaining the skip rules.

1) If your miss your time slot,  you are skipped.
2) Once your skipped, the draft proceeds as fast as possible until the end of the day.
3) At the end of the day, the draft stops if their are any unfilled skips
4) If there are no unfilled skips, we may proceed to the second day.

Basically, we want to draft as fast as possible every day, regardless of time slots.  Time slots are their as a worst case scenario - picks have to be in by "X" or you get skipped.

Today we has a situation were a person had the 2:00-2:30 slot and missed it.  The person drafting at 2:30 made their pick right at 2:30.  The person in the 3:00-3:30 time slot made their own pick seconds later at 3:31.  This is valid.

(the above times are made up)

However, we are all friends.  While the above is 100% valid and within all our rules, I do ask that everyone try to be courteous to others.

If you are skipping someone but see they are on the board, shoot them a board message that you are going to pick in 5 minutes or something.  The poor guy could be in the can or something, or feeding a crying baby, unexpectedly away from his computer for a few minutes.  If he doesn't respond in 5 minutes - go ahead and post.

I full realize the above is not enforceable and likely open to more questions than answers.  My personal rule of thumb - if you wouldn't do it to your 85 year old grandmother, don't do it to your fellow ATB neighbor.

Draft on!

Introducing the ATB Player Cards

I am giddy about an excel spreadsheet and not ashamed to say so.  For years I have wished Diamond Mind Baseball would develop "Player Profile Pages" that would give owners a quick glance at how good the player is, what he's done in the past, etc.  Unfortunately, the company has been putting most of its funding into an online version of the game and new enhancements have been hard to come by.

I've created an Excel workbook that summarizes the kinds of data you would expect on Player Profile.  I tend to think of it as a digital baseball card.

An overview of functionality:

• Historical Stat Lines
• ATB Career Averages
• 79 and 100 Resim stat Lines
• Real Life Stat Lines
• Highlights to great stat occurrences (100 RBI, 20 Wins, etc)
• Player Ratings such as Base Running, Durability, Clutch, etc
• Fielding Ratings
• Charts and Graphs (whoo hoo!)
• Searchable Drop Down box that allows you to select the player in question.

The file is rather large and meant to updated annually much like a baseball card.  Download it one time, and refer to it for you draft and during the season.

If there are fellow excel nerds out there, the sheet is protected, but if you want to monkey around with the formula's and functionality, just un-protect it - there is no password.

Finally, to entice you, below are some screens shots.  The file can be downloaded here and is linked in various other parts of the site, including the owners resource box on the right.

If you run into any difficulties, drop me a note and I can address if possible.

Batters

Ratings and Player Selection Drop Down

Fielding Ratings for each eligible position

Historical Register

Charts

Full View

Pitchers

Pitcher Ratings

Charts

Pitcher Register

Full View

Introducing the ATB Historical Registers

I was attempting to explain to one of the new owners the best place to get data to prepare for the draft.  It starts with the 79 resims, but then we go to the 100 resims (for which I provide 6 files), and of course each individual season is loaded into separate season capsules.  We also have the defense file, and to top it off, players are named differently across each of them.

Its bush league.  Can't believe no one has shouted at me to make amends.

Now loaded to the ATB History Page is the new "ATB Historical Registers".  This file outlines the known history of each player:

• Results for every ATB Season
• Career averages for ATB
• 100 Resim Results
• 79 Resim Results

All laid out in an intuitive manner, somewhat similar to Baseball-Reference or the back of a baseball card, only not nearly as awesome. 

Here are some screen shots:

Enjoy!

Facebook Newsfeed

Just a reminder to the new guys.  If you are a heavy facebook user you can save some time and get these blog posts on your facebook news feed by clicking the like button on the lower right hand side of the blog.

Welcome Paulie N!

Chris P ultimately decided he had too much going at work to give ATB the attention it needs.  He's bowed out for the season, but I hope to have back next spring.

Please welcome Paulie N to the league, who will be taking over for Chris.

His picks are up, draft on!

Diamonds in the Rough

If you're like me, the horror we call a draft board has already been wrecked.  The early value picks are gone and one can predict the 2nd and 3rd rounds won't be much better.  Last year our champion DC Chips drafted Ty Cobb and Stan Musial as their first and second round choices.  This year, the two players were both mid 1st rounders selected at 13th and 14th.  Last year Randy Johnson was a late 2nd rounder, selected 33rd overall.  This year 22nd.  The draft has tightened up as owners get smarter and I continue to publish resims (sorry JP!).

Given the competitiveness, I thought I would take a look back in our history to try to identify the Top-5 surprising seasons of all time.  After all, it may come down to an unlikely hero to get our teams into the playoffs.

This is purely a subjective exercise.  My definition of a surprise is certainly different than yours.  In no particular order:

1973 Willie Stargell (MIC)

79 Resims: .267 / .322 / .527

ATB VIII : .282 / .341 / .644, 60 HR, 117 R, 145 RBI

Much of the data from ATB VIII has been lost so we don't know exactly where Stargell was drafted.  Last season he went in the 4th round, at the 60th overall pick.  We do know that no one expects 60 homers and 145 RBI that late in the draft.  

Stargell didn't even lead the league in home runs or RBI, but he did lead a poor on paper Lakers squad to almost a .500 record.

1914 Steve Evans (WPP)

79 Resims: .296 / .351 / .443 in a platoon

ATB XI ::  .361 / .407 / .539, 35 2B, 18 3B

Incredibly, Evans was an 11th Rounder picked 260th overall, and helped lead the Windy City Potato Pickers to one of the best records in our league's history.  Evans was injured for about 30 games, keeping his Runs and RBI totals down to a meager 78 and 69 respectively, but he did bat 2nd against righties and 5th against lefties when healthy.

As a testament to how much better we are at drafting nowadays, he had many teammates that are now 1st or 2nd round picks - Ty Cobb, Babe Adams, Randy Johnson, Jeff Bagwell, and one of the league's best catchers, Bill Dickey.  It's no wonder Windy City went 111-51.

1972 Don Sutton (FRL)

79 Resims: 11 W, 4.24 ERA, 1.46 WHIP

ATB VII :: 14-7, 2.45 ERA, 1.22 WHIP

And frankly, that 79 Resim ERA seems awfully low.  

Sutton is so ill thought of by ATB owners he wasn't even drafted last year, but the Franklin Lakes Pillpoppers saw something in the righty, taking him in the 11th round and inserting him into the third spot in the rotation.  It paid dividends, as the squad won 108 games before bowing out in the 1st round of the playoffs.

1966 Gary Peters (P10)

79 Resims:  Did Not Get Drafted

ATB IX:  7-2, 1.94 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 

What did I stumble upon here?  1966 Gary Peters has only been used twice in ATB history.  Once for the Rocherster Beau Brummels he stunk, giving up 119 hits in 88 innings and amassing a 5.95 RCERA.  He was truly bad, but also played in an extreme batters park, so forgive  him a bit.

A few years earlier in ATB IX, Peters was a monster.  His line: 125 IP, 108 H, 55 K in 58 games.  He played in a batters park but did have very good defense behind him.

I wonder which Peters is real?

1912 Frank Baker (STL)

79 Resims: .285 / .328 / .415, 262 TB

ATB VIII:: .301 / .342 / .534, 380 TB

We all know Frank Baker is a good player, but would you have ever guessed he holds the 8th best single season mark for total bases in history? Better than Stan Musial ever did, better than Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Tip O'Neill, and a score of other batters typically picked ahead of him.

In ATB VIII Baker had what now must be ruled my favorite season of all time - 47 2B, 25 3B, and 23 HR.  No other player has ever had 40 doubles, 20 triples, and 20 homers in the same season.

The St Louis Slammers were a PC run powerhouse that year, winning 88 games with Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Roger Maris, Carl Yastrzemski, Javy Lopez, and Baker all belting over 20 home runs.  The scored 1001 in total but missed the playoffs.