Breeders Cup Preview Part II: The Picks and Contest

Between being on trial this week and having to do 500 other things, we are sadly bereft of the time to do a full preview on this year's Breeders Cup and the 14 races. So let's try something different and see how it works. We'll pick 1-2-3 each race and next week, compare our results with the Daily Racing Form's expert's picks. We'll do the comparison in 2 ways:

(1) On a simple results fashion, who had the most winners, etc.
(2) On a paramutuel basis, which will be more interesting. For kicks, in each races we'll say that we (and the DRF people) are making the following wagers:

• $5 to win, place and show on the win horse
• $5 to place and show on the place horse
• $5 to show on the show horse
• $2 exacta box on each race of the top 3 horses
• $1 trifecta box on each race of the top 3 horses

That comes to $48 "bet" per race, for a $672 "bankroll" for the weekend. Let's see how we stack up. For now, the picks:

Marathon	1. Man of Iron
	2. Mastery
	3. Eldaafer
JF Turf	1. Lillie Langtry
	2. Hatheer
	3. Junia Tenzia
Juv Fillies	1. Always a Princess
	2. Biofuel
	3. Zilva
F&M Turf	1. Forever Together
	2. Rutherienne
	3. Midday
F&M Sprint	1. Seventh Street
	2. Ventura
	3. Sara Louise
Distaff	1. Music Note
	2. Life is Sweet
	3. Careless Jewel
Juv Turf	1. Pounced
	2. Viscount Nelson
	3. King Ledley
Turf Sprint	1. Lord Shanakill
	2. Diamondrella
	3. Desert Code
Sprint	1. Gayego
	2. Crown of Thorns
	3. Dancing in Silks
Juvenile	1. Radiohead
	2. Alfred Nobel
	3. Aspire
Mile	1. Goldikova
	2. Ferneley
	3. Zacinto
“Dirt” Mile	1. Mastercraftsman
	2. Neko Bay
	3. Ready’s Echo
Turf	1. Conduit
	2. Telling
	3. Spanish Moon
Classic	1. Richard’s Kid
	2. Twice Over
	3. Mine That Bird

Open Comment Thread to Discuss New Rules Proposals

If you're not a league member, I have no idea why you're reading this. For now, though, we're reprinting Scot's and Angelo's emails from earlier today regarding proposed rule changes. Let's have discussion in the comments section.

Scot:

As for me, I've proposed that we remove the weighting from the lottery (for the 2011 draft) and that we change how the eligibility for prospects are enforced.

For the lottery, I want to remove some of the temptation to tank once your team is out of the running. If the owners who place 4 - 12 all have the same shot at the first round pick, then finishing in last isn't as tempting. Of course, you still guarantee your team the 1st or 2nd round pick, but it's a step in the right direction. Angelo's option is also good as it goes further and distributes the first 9 picks all by lottery so you have no idea what pick you'll end up with. Angelo, is the lottery in your proposal weighted still?

For the prospects, I'm trying to remove the manual tracking that goes on during the season to watch whether a prospect exceeds the games (or IP) limits. Under my proposal, you would check those limits twice: after the draft when you add newly drafted players to your prospect slots and when keepers are announced and you declare which players you are keeping in prospect slots. During the season, if a player exceeds the limits, nothing happens. You can keep him reserved the whole season with no consequence. Once keepers are announced, he won't qualify anymore so you will have to spend a real slot to keep him at that time. I realize this takes away some of the "simulation" aspect of the prospects as a regular major leaguer can sit in a prospect slot all season (like Andrus probably would have done this past season if the game limit had not been enforced), but I think it's a worthwhile loss to get rid of the manual tracking involved.

Angelo:

A brief explanation on my rule changes/proposals:

• In my proposal for the lottery, it's not weighted. So basically, you have no idea if you'll have pick 1-9 until February. My idea has less to do with an anti-tanking provision than to give some relief to teams that routinely finish in 4th - 7th, which as was discussed during the year is no-man's land.
  
• My suggestion for the prospect list allows teams to accumulate prospects during the year, which I think would help rebuilding teams. However, you still can only keep two prospects; I don't think the prospect list should become an entire AA roster for a team.
• I've suggested changing the pitching slots every year, and won't rehash that argument.
• My suggestion for expanding the bench and/or DL is also to help crappy teams take more flyers on guys at the end of the year and to balance the fact that since steroid use is down, injuries are up. I am a Met fan, remember.
• Last, my proposal for Net Steals is to punish guys who steal a lot of bases with minimal efficiency. (And I'm looking at....you, Chone Figgins.) I was also going to throw the idea of changing "saves" to Net Saves to punish the Brian Fuentes of the world, but that seemed a bridge too far.

Hobble The Angels

After watching Bobby Abreu run into what seemed like the 8 millionth dumb baserunning out of recent Angels playoff history, I was inspired to take a look at just how badly they've bungled the bases come October. Full results are here, but the upshot is that they've cost themselves about six expected runs in only 30 games, an exhibition of basrunning so bad that it rivals Mike Lowell's 2009 season on the basepaths. Check out the full post if you have a spare moment; it should be in a public part of the linked site.

Breeders Cup Preview Part I: The Forgotten Horse?

We're three weeks out from the Breeders Cup, which means it's time to start taking stock in the quality of the fields and getting some general ideas about the potential runners. Let's start the process by looking at a horse that may get overlooked in the big race, the Classic.

So far the Classic has taken a beating in the horse racing media, and they haven't even drawn the field yet. Sea of Stars, who was hailed as the best European horse since Mill Reef, retired after the Arc despite being perfectly healthy. The best horse in America, Rachel Alexandra, has called it a year, having beaten every three year old of note and all the east coast dirt horses that are any good. The next best storyline, the undefeated filly Zenyatta, may or may not decide to take on the boys in the Classic, and even if she does, she'll be overbet based on her record.

Turning to the probable favorites in the Classic beyond Zenyatta and it stays a little dicey. In the wake of two Euros making up last year's Classic exacta, the favorites on everyone's tongue are Aidan O'Brien's pair of accomplished milers, Rip van Winkle and Mastercraftsman. While clearly they can win, they're going to be 2-1 and 5-1 respectively, and offer no paramutuel appeal. Summer Bird, winner of the Belmont, Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup, is a nice horse, but hasn't won anything outside of New York and has trained like garbage over synthetic tracks. American turf sensation Gio Ponti should be competitive with his usual effort, but his previous efforts on synthetics are unimpressive. California mainstays like Colonel John, Tiago and Richard's Kid do not exactly get the pulse racing. And the top East Coast older horses like Macho Again and Bullsbay look to be too slow.

However, still lurking out there is a colt that once made headlines and has since disappeared from the public's eye....


...this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird.

We know, we're the same guys that ranked him 20th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby, where all he did was rally from DAF'ing last to win by the largest margin since Assault. What's he been doing since then, for those of us who haven't been paying attention?

Preakness: Mine That Bird loses jockey Calvin Borel to Rachel Alexandra and picks up Mike Smith as his new rider. Perhaps as a result of the bad karma that came with Smith (his ex-girlfriend, Chantal Sutherland, was MTB's regular rider in Canada), Mine That Bird runs a huge race, but doesn't get a great trip and has to settle for second behind Rachel Alexandra. Arguably, it's more impressive than his Derby win.

Belmont Stakes: Calvin Borel has one of the odder weeks for a jockey. Even though he's based out of Kentucky and is not particularly familiar with the Belmont surface, Borel takes the entire week of the Belmont off and doesn't ride a single race at the track until the Stakes. Bad idea. He fails to appreciate how quirky Belmont's enormous turns are and misses a pronounced rail bias, makes a premature move in the turn with MTB, who flattens out to run third to Summer Bird and Dunkirk. It's unclear if he would have won with a better ride but he certainly would have had a shot if Borel knew how to ride at Belmont.

West Virginia Derby: Eschewing the big early August races (the Jim Dandy and Haskell), the connections of MTB send him to bucolic Chester, West Virginia to run in the West Virginia Derby for a seemingly easier paycheck. Wrong. Sent off at 9-10 odds, he gets the quick pace he wanted, but Mike Smith, back in the irons, sends him after the leaders way too early, and he has nothing left for the stretch run as he settles for third place. This prompts the connections to decide to take off the rest of August and September, and have one prep for the Breeders Cup:

Goodwood: With Borel back in the saddle, MTB sets in at dead last about 12 lengths off the lead, and runs 6th. Oddly, this was his best race since the Preakness. He wasn't asked to move until 2 furlongs out, and did respond, albeit not with rocket speed. He closed nicely into a moderate pace and looked like a horse that needed the race to "tighten" up for a big spot. (As noted by Steve Crist, Zenyatta, who ran that same day, would have lost to him.)

So where does this put him for the Breeders Cup Classic? Well, there's still no guarantee he likes a synthetic track; he ran dead last in the Breeders Cup Juvenile last year, and Borel's comments after the Goodwood weren't that inspiring. What is true, though, is that we can expect a fair pace in the Classic this year and the extra furlong will be to his benefit. We're not sure he can win. But you're getting a horse that likes the distance, likes the race shape, and may be peaking at 15-1 or possibly higher. Is he the answer we're looking for? He just may be.

Taking Requests (or "Ou sont les Neifis d'antan?")

(That's right, a French subtitle. We here at the GRBG are nothing if not cosmopolitan polygots.)

It has come to our attention that, as is so often the case come the cold rains of autumn, some of our readership are casting their minds back to those halcyon days when the league was young. Specifically, these readers want to get a sense of how the league owners stack up all-time, over the life of the league.

Ordinarily we would just ignore those readers, as we take pride in generating maximum levels of annoyance. Here, though, the public may be on to something. And when someone somewhere is on to something, we here at the GRBG make a chart. So put this marzipan in your pie plate, bingo:

	AVG FINISH	AVG PTS	Cashes	Cash %	Wins	Win %
Tucker (8)	2.1	91.7	6	0.750	4	0.500
Scot (5)	3.8	81.7	4	0.800	1	0.200
Jake (8)	4.6	76.6	4	0.500	1	0.125
Alex (7)	5.3	73.3	2	0.286	1	0.143
Teddy (8)	6.1	69.3	2	0.250	0	0.000
Darrandrew† (7)	6.1	68.2	2	0.286	1	0.143
Angelo (8)	6.4	60.4	2	0.250	0	0.000
Corey* (5-ish)	6.7	63.3	1	0.200	0	0.000
Matty G. (3)	7.2	58.2	0	0.000	0	0.000
Will (7)	7.9	58.9	1	0.143	0	0.000
Jon (7)	8.0	55.6	0	0.000	0	0.000
Sahil (8)	8.4	51.1	0	0.000	0	0.000
Andy (8)	8.6	53.6	0	0.000	0	0.000
Dave (1)	9.0	48.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Vihar (1)	9.0	48.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Other Scot (1)	9.0	48.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Mike* (3)	9.0	47.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Val (1)	12.0	27.5	0	0.000	0	0.000

† Coupled as an entry because of past joint ownership.
* Split '07 season; finish assigned to Mike.
(Note--more boring methodological stuff at the end of the post)

Obviously there's a lot to digest here. Let's start with the obvious questions: who's been the best and who's been the worst?

On the happy side, there's a pretty clear #1, with Tucker leading in every category except Cash %, where he's edged out by the consistency of Scot, the clear league #2. Five different guys have won the league title, which is actually a sneaky big level of parity given Tucker's long shadow.

On the less happy side, there isn't anything like as clear of a consensus (thankfully). Just going by the numbers, Val has set a floor that cannot be lowered. But is it really fair to hang the goat horns on a guy who was only in the league one year?

Well then maybe M*ke is our man, with his across-the-board worst numbers for multi-year owners. But again, he was only here for 2.5 of the 8 seasons.

Maybe the solution is to do this in tiers. Mike is probably the overall anti-champ. But let's be brave and look at the bottom of the veteran barrel. There are three main contenders: governor lowercase and the Brothers Eldersamozof, each with a unique claim to the throne. Eldersamozov the Lesser has the worst average ordinal finish, gl has the worst average point total, and Eldersamozov the Elder has the worst "best" performance, having finished no better than 5th in any season. We should also note that six different guys have finished last, so it's not as though there's really a habitual punching bag here. Accordingly, we are thrilled to declare it a tie and move on.

What about your humble authors, you might ask? Well, we've both ended up in the middle, though via different routes. As you'll see below in the records section, El Angelo has had a stunning variety of oddball seasons. Teddy, by contrast, has largely been boring--just about all you could hang on him is the dreaded label of "Best Never To Win A Major". Still, there's something oddly fun about the idea of two abject mediocrities offering advice to both ends of the league bell curve.

For your further delectation, here are a few random nuggets from the detailed data we used to create the chart.

Best Single-Season Point Total: 106 (Le Dupont Torkies, 2004)
Worst Single-Season Point Total: 19 (El Angelo, 2007 . . . and 2008)

Most Points By Non-Winner: 98 (Darrandrew, 2008)
Fewest Points By Winner: 84 (Alex, 2003)

Most Points By Non-Casher: 86.5 (El Angelo, 2009)
Fewest Points By Casher: 79.5 (El Angelo, 2003)

Average point totals for each ordinal rank:

1st: 96.1
2d: 90.5
3d: 87.4
4th: 80.4
5th: 73.5
6th: 67.6
7th: 63.6
8th: 58.0
9th: 53.0
10th: 44.2
11th: 38.4
12th: 27.7

-----------------------------------
OK, we suppose that we ought to explain what all those numbers mean. The number in parentheses next to the owner name represents the number of seasons the owner has participated in. AVG FINISH is derived by adding up the owners ordinal rank for each season, and dividing the total by the seasons participated in. Because the ordinal numbers can sometimes disguise how close (or not) two teams are, we've also thrown in AVG PTS to show the historic average point totals as well. The rest is hopefully self-explanatory.

For the '02 season, we assigned places 1-6 and 12, and put everyone else at T-9. Since we don't have point totals for that year, we used the average ordinal rank point totals above. Selah.

End of Season Analysis: This Year's Prospect List

When we started the Wankdorf league, it came with the idea of having a prospect list, and everyone got to put a pair of players on the list who wouldn't take up keeper slots. In the initial draft, the slots were occupied by the good (Mark Teixeira), the bad (Austin Kearns) and the ugly (Nick Papagiorgio). Unfortunately for the commish, there was no rule that you couldn't add and drop players as the year went on, making it a logistical nightmare. When owners like me and Ironhead started dropping actual prospects and added Steve Gutenberg and Ted Williams' (Now Defiled) Head, it was clearly time for the list to go.

The list was brought back in 2007 with the caveat that you can't add or drop players during the year, meaning that in theory, you should pay attention when you pick players. While the prospect list wasn't ignored in '07 and '08, this year it got some extra attention in the draft. Last year I was mocked (by Andy, of all people) for taking David Price in the 8th round of the draft. This year nobody laughed Scot took a pitcher still in college in the 5th round, and by the 8th round, half a dozen prospects had been taken. You can chalk that up to people deciding that Tim Beckham was a more worthwhile investment than Mike Aviles (also picked by Andy, who coincidentally, finished in last this year) or everyone just trying to be a genius.

Six months later let's see how everyone did with their picks, bearing in mind that we won't know if some of these guys are any good for a couple of years.

Definite Hits

Gordon Beckham (Mission Accomplished). A midseason callup eligible at 2 positions who hit like a rookie of the year. He helped this team this year and should be a keeper for the foreseeable future.

Tommy Hanson (Le Dupont Torkies). He's already Atlanta's second-best pitcher and is a key reason this team repeated.

Rick Porcello (Unenviable Position). Helluva pitcher, stuck on a rebuilding fantasy team. Problematically, by the time Chad's squad gets good, the Tigers will suck.

Andrew McCutchen (Evil League of Evil). I'm sure Scot would have preferred this guy staying in AAA all season, but he's looked pretty good since being called up, albeit on a team that hasn't had a winning season since George H.W. Bush left office.

Oops

Chris Tillman (Mission Accomplished, traded to Unenviable Position); Cameron Maybin (wormcheese mousebird); Travis Snider (The Loose Bowels). These 3 guys weren't bad prospects in theory, but they've all exhausted their prospect eligibility this year and have sucked in the process. Query whether any are worth a keeper slot.

Brett Anderson (Flaccid Funiculi). Anderson had a nice rookie year. Sadly for Will, it was on Tucker's team.

Top Prospects for '10

Neftali Feliz (Unenviable Position). He ranks first in this group because in his cup of coffee he's looked like a stud. He's next years David Price.

Stephen Strasberg (Evil League of Evil). Still a scary good prospect. Unsure how helpful he'll be in 2010, mostly because the Nats suck.

Wade Davis (wormcheese mousebird). Tampa's next big thing on the hill and a big reason they dealt Scott Kazmir for 5 boxes of Ding Dongs.

Pedro Alvarez (Wu Tang Financial). Good news: he recovered from a slow start in the minors. Better news: this fantasy team needs a new infield badly, and he'll probably be a cornerstone of it from 2011-2016.

Buster Posey (It's Enrico Palazzo). Not sure why he spent most of September riding the pine in San Francisco, but he should be a fun call up next year and will be their 2nd best hitter by Arbor Day.

Prospects With Questions

Tim Beckham (Aroids Anonymous). The wrong Beckham? It's way too early to write him off but his luster faded a little this year.

Brian Matsusz (Wu Tang Financial). Looked so-so in his call up this year. Fortunately, he only pitched 44 innings for the O's and maintained his eligibility, the problem is there's no reason to think he'll be any good next year.

Madison Bumgarner (The Spam Avengers). Why does he have a woman's name?

Carlos Carrasco (Flaccid Funiculi). A toss-in from the Cliff Lee trade, he may have 4th starter written all over him.

Mike Moustakas (Aroids Anonymous). He's young, but showed very little in High A ball. Of course, he could have just been depressed about living in Wilmington, Delaware.

Josh Fields (Le Dupont Torkies). I have still never heard of this guy. Did Tucker take the modern Sid Fynch?

Prospects Gone Bad

Lars Anderson (It's Enrico Palazzo). Projects to be the next Alan Zinter. Wonderful.

Adam Miller (The Spam Avengers). His arm may have fallen off.

Nick Adenhart (The Loose Bowels). Well, I suppose it's better than having Angel Villalona. [Note: do we know where Villalona was on the night of Adenhart's accident? I think we might have cracked the case!--Teddy]

Busts

Gio Gonzalez (Recalcitrant Cobbler). Spent most of the year in the majors pitching poorly. May have gotten whiplash from all the homers he's allowed.

Elvis Andrus (Recalcitrant Cobbler). A fun prospect to end on, because he's the perfect example of a nice MLB player that's so-so for fantasy purposes. He may win ROTY based on defense, good fundamentals and a funny name. And he'll probably be in the majors for more than a decade, on a fantasy team every year, and never kept. We have found the new Orlando Cabrera.

Not to Beat a Dead Horse, But...

Runs scored rankings during the regular season for the remaining N.L. and A.L.:

A.L....................................N.L.

New York (1).....................Philadelphia (2)
L.A. Angels (2)..................L.A. Dodgers (3)

Pitching and Defense

Remember, kids, winning teams are built around pitching and defense. As proof, here are the top ten A.L. teams pitching and defense teams as measured by runs allowed, with playoff teams bolded:

1. Seattle
2. Chicago
3. Boston
4. Texas
5. Detroit
6. New York
7. Tampa Bay
8. Minnesota
T-9. L.A./Anaheim
T-9. Oakland

See? All the playoff teams are in the top ten. Compare that with A.L. team offensive rankings, as measured by runs scored, again with playoff teams bolded:

1. New York
2. L.A./Anaheim
3. Boston
4. Minnesota
. . .
Wait.

Never mind.

Drive-By Tuckers

Congratulations to Le Dupont Torkies for their win this season. Aroids Anonymous overcame evil supercomputer Nate Silver for second, and Recalcitrant Cobbler made a stirring late charge to hit the board for third. On behalf of my colleague (who is currently indisposed by both trial work and an incoherent, stuttering rage at his team's offensive collapse), thanks to all for a fun season.

As for the blog, we have a couple more league-related posts on tap (i.e. at look at the prospects of each team's, er, prospects), and doubtless will have something to say about the MLB playoffs this month. That will take us up to El Angelo's award-winning Breeders Cup coverage in late October/early November. Apres ca, le deluge.