Transactions Analysis: The Mic Drop

Yes lads it's time.  After 18 years, 50,000 transactions, and 400 Ryan Cum Dempster jokes, the Young Boys' Wankdorf league has called it quits.  Which means there's only one last bit of housekeeping - a final TA!

At the risk of being sappy, Teddy and I started writing these on a whim in the 3rd season in the league's "recent messages" column, and at some point, one of us had the hair-brained idea to start a "site" with the columns, rather than using the message board.  We've since then populated this site with horse racing previews, World Cup analysis, and dissertations on the Heisman Trophy, but to us, this site has first and foremost been a repository for the TAs.  So let's give it the proper send off.  (El Angelo)

Some historical context might prove useful. The first real TA published on the blog--which, as Ang notes, happened something like 3-4 years into the TA era--contained the following entry:

Nigerian Gentlemen

Signed: Oliver Pérez (NYM - SP), Kenny Lofton (Tex - OF), Moisés Alou (NYM - OF), Jim Edmonds (StL - OF), Jon Lester (Bos - SP), Aubrey Huff (Bal - 3B,OF)

Waived:  Lester, Joel Piñeiro (Bos - SP,RP)

Hmm. So the Sese Sekos added (at least temporarily) two good, if flawed, young arms, presumably in an attempt to compete down the road. They then turned around and added FOUR past-their-prime outfielders, in what looks like a win-now strategy. Obviously, it's a touch early to completely abandon this season (unless you're Angelo, in which case you're already preparing your draft list for 2009), but the mixed signals are odd. (Teddy)

Well, they waived Cancer Boy Lester, so there's really just adding one arm, and that's the volatile Oliver! Perez. I've seen dumber ideas. Like....signing 3 guys who are well fit for a HACKING MASS squad and Jim Edmonds' corpse. Vomit. (Angelo)

...

All of the following is true: Moises Alou is now the general manager of the Dominican Winter League. Aubrey Huff is getting in Twitter fights with Seth McClung. Kenny Lofton is the CEO of Filmpool, Inc., which just produced an MMA movie starring the guy from Starship Troopers. Jim Edmonds has appeared on the Real Housewives of Orange County. None of Twitter, Filmpool Inc, or the Real Housewives existed when the original post was made.

So, yeah. We're talking a borderline actual geologic era here. (Teddy)

#20.  Val (1 season, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 1 DAFL)

Val's only season got off to a rip-roaring start when his first two draft picks were Nomar Garciaparra and Bret Boone, hot off the latter's Brady Anderson 1991 impersonation.  Can't fathom why Val lost.  (El Angelo)

The Nomar pick was understandable because Val's father's name is Onitnelav (he's Moldovan). (Teddy)

#18T. Vihal (1 season, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 0 DAFL)
#18T. Other Scot (ibid)

I remember absolutely nothing about either of these guys other than that they participated remotely in the first draft at Andy's apartment, and I was dealing with them online.  I think they were Elders' friends?  Either way, they were so unmemorable they go below our other one-and-done owner. (El Angelo)

I want to tread lightly here because we're old enough that one or both of these guys could plausibly be dead by now. Thoughts and prayers(?). (Teddy)

#17.  Bartolacci (1 season, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 0 DAFL)

Two words for everyone who was in the league the first year: Shane Reynolds. (El Angelo)

Dave's team ultimately met the same fate as his Twitter account: abandoned for a decade and then hacked by the Russians. (Teddy)

#16.  M*ke (2 seasons, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 0 DAFL, 1 Quit)

The guy who refused to give his team an actual name, and quit because we twice vetoed a trade where he dealt away all of his good players for - and this is serious - an injured Francisco Liriano, an uninjured Armando Benitez, Freddie Sanchez, JD Drew, and something called Gary Glover.  I remember exchanging about 400 emails around this trade brouhaha, including one where Will rejected the trade from China, and another where Sahil told someone to go get their shinebox.  (El Angelo)

My email reflects that shortly thereafter, Gary Glover was dropped for Luis Vizcaino. Then he got busted for child sexual assault. Things may have turned around, though, because his song "Rock and Roll Part 2" is featured in the new Joker movie.

#15.  Sahil (18 seasons, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 4 DAFL)

There is something truly glorious about Ironhead's 18-year run of futility, to the point where we're ranking him below people who were in the league for less than a full presidential administration.  I'll give the man this: he had the best team names, and I appreciated his desire to stick with the ee cummings typeface convention.  My personal favorites were "i am esix snead" and "bonderman's grundle," though I have no idea what generated the latter name.  (El Angelo)

A commonly voiced criticism of statistical analysis holds that numbers can be used to prove almost anything. There is merit to that criticism. For example, coming into this year Sahil's average place of finish over his time in the league was 8.9. That statistic implies that in last year's 8-team league, Sahil should have finished 0.9 places behind the last-place finisher. This, of course, did not happen. He instead finished 8th and last, thereby slightly *improving* his historical average place of finish to 8.8.

"bonderman's grundle" slaps, though. (Teddy)

#T13.  Matty (3 seasons, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 0 DAFL)
#T13.  Ben (3 seasons, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 0 DAFL)

Matt was an initial owner who bowed out after 3 years (and also my fairly useless brother).  Ben came into about a decade after it started, and also only lasted 3 years.  Both guys were of relatively good cheer, always willing to talk trade, and spectacular at busting Andy's balls.  The last skill is not one to under-appreciate, as we learned with, oh I don't know who...let's just call him, *ike.   (El Angelo)

This one caused some controversy in the GRBG's headquarters (currently located beneath the steam table at the Gowanus Whole Foods), as I vociferously argued that Ben's Mose Schrute beard should put him over the top. (Teddy)

#12.  Darrin (4 seasons solo, 0 wins, 0 cashes, 0 DAFL)

I can't remember if Darrin was in from Year 1 or Year 2, but he also was always willing to talk trade and drink beer.  He's more memorable for bringing in a co-owner who, unlike many of the other names on this list, actually knew what he was doing, and made the league tough for stiffs like me.  Solid on his own; tough when he was a co-owner.  (El Angelo)

The increasing competency of the league over time remains a vexation. Get dumber, people. (Teddy)

#11.  Jon (17 seasons, 0 wins, 1 cash, 2 DAFL)

In three separate years, Jon and I executed draft-day trades where I traded down and still got the player I wanted plus something extra.  Mind you, in none of those years did either of us finish in the money.  I think Jon's best season was about a decade ago when he won the Deathship league.  (El Angelo)

I'll always remember Jon for trading me Troy Tulowitski eleven days prior to Tulo's first major knee injury. I still have a printed-out copy of the espnzone.lycos.com story announcing the injury on the floor of my bird's cage. The bird died in 2012, so I doubt it minds. (Teddy)

#10.  Corey (14 seasons, 0 wins, 1 cash, 2 DAFL)

Pips Jon because he finished in 2nd once, while Jon never topped 3rd.  Really, the best part about this league calling it quits was getting rid of any emails with wormcheesemousebird.  (El Angelo)

You know, we're almost done with this finale post and we haven't really done anything yet to pass along our accumulated wisdom to the next generation of people who will undoubtedly use the Blogger platform to chronicle their fantasy teams. Let's correct that by dropping three nuggets of wisdom:

1. The word "Neshek" is funny; use it relentlessly.
2. Never get aboard an aircraft piloted by a New York Yankee
3. Once your league owners start having kids, MAINTAIN AN UP-TO-DATE SPREADSHEET OF THOSE KIDS' NAMES. I cannot emphasize this last point too strongly. (Teddy)

#9.  Andy (18 seasons, 0 wins 2 cashes, 2 DAFL)

As an initial point, I want to say that Andy was a superb commish for nearly two decades.  This wasn't the most contentious league, but several of us, myself included, are pains in the ass, and Sahil is Sahil.  I mean, this league was started by a bunch of law school students, and then voluntarily added multiple Duke alums and a guy working for George W. Bush.  Prickishness was a given.  But Andy's patience and fairness were a testament to his character.

In terms of being an owner...well, Andy's most consequential move was dealing a prospect named Mike Trout and a future first rounder to Scot in July 2011 as part of an ill-fated pennant drive.  Andy finished in 8th - and by points, closer to last than 5th - and Scot used Trout plus the pick (which became Zack Greinke) to win 4 of the next 5 titles.  Woof.  (El Angelo)

Seconded. This was a hell of a lot of effort for no reward other than dealing with a rotating cast of snarkmonsters. I've been meaning to tell Andy that for a long time, but I'm still waiting for him to sober up from that poker game in 2002 where he locked himself in the bathroom. (Teddy)

#8.  Angelo (17 seasons, 0.5 wins, 4.5 cashes, 4 DAFL)

With the passage of time, I completely forgot about my mid-late 2000s version of The Process, where I basically sat out two years with the idea of accumulating draft picks, only to blow them on baseball's versions of Jahlil Okafor.  My results in this league were essentially a sine curve: in the money the first two years, jack shit after the benefits of a good initial draft wore off, a little bump of success about 8 years in, followed by more jack shit, then an out-of-nowhere win with co-owner Wilfredo.  Viva Stable Geniuses!  (El Angelo)

The relentless avoidance of mediocricy was impressive. Although, in retrospect, it's fair to question the wisdom of tanking for draft picks in a league in which the 144 top players may not reach the draft. Thanks also for blowing what I know to be multiple days of your one and only life on this extremely odd thing we created. (Teddy)  

#7.  Will (17 seasons, 0.5 wins, 3.5 cashes, 2 DAFL)

My partner goes above me because (a) he rode the hell out of our team in September last year to get us the W, and (b) he sucked less frequently than me.  The genesis of our 2018 team was forged at Tucker's wedding, when Will and I - for reasons unclear - described the TA column to a dozen extremely confused, drunk, and sunburned WASPs.  My other favorite contribution Will made to the league was repeatedly making trade demands and threatening to put you on the No Fly List if you didn't accept.  I like to think that Sahil still gets a full cavity search every time he's at BWI.  (El Angelo)

Will's other claim to fame was proving completely impervious to predictions made in the column. This included predictions by Ang and I, as well as polls of the league as a whole. Although it makes sense that our own deplorable would prove unmeasurable by polls. (Teddy)  

#6.  Jake (12 seasons, 1 win, 5 cashes, 0 DAFL)

Never forget: in the league's first year, 9 owners finished behind 2 guys who spent 5 weeks on the road with no internet access, and another guy with a debilitating medical issue.  Man, we really should have convinced Val to stay in the league.  (El Angelo)

I learned I had climbed from 8th to 3d over those five weeks by using a public internet kiosk in the food court of the Stardust. Almost none of those nouns still exist. (Teddy)

#5.  Teddy (18 seasons, 1 win, 6 cashes, 0 DAFL)

I actually thought my co-author had more cashes than this - he never really punted in a given year, and usually drafted well in the middle rounds.  A review of the old standings revealed that he had four seasons where he accumulated 91 - 96.5 points, and won in none of those years.  It wasn't until I took a year off that the competition lightened enough for him to be able to hoist the trophy.  (El Angelo)

My strength was making getting the best out of the roster I drafted--in other words, as a fantasy coach. But like so many other coaches who also aspire to GM, I leave a legacy as a genuinely questionable drafter. I should have just thrown on autodraft every year and then figured out my platoons from there. (Teddy)


#4.  Andrew/Darrindrew (14 seasons, 2 wins, 7 cashes, 0 DAFL)

The top 4 owners were truly in an echelon above the rest - after the inaugural season, there wasn't a year where at least one of them didn't finish in the money, they took two of the three money slots in 12 of those 17 years, and swept the money 4 times.  Andrew was one of our steadiest owners - he won in what I think was his first year playing in 2007 (with Darrin back then), and was constantly in the money or a threat to cash.  On a personal level, I sadly have never met Andrew, and I think his connection to the league was Darrin, who came in through Jake.  If you're ever in New York, Mr. Cain, beers on me.  (El Angelo)

Agreed; all I have to add is that the data really broke down in some earlier years, so we don't really have know for sure where Darrin ended and Andrew began. Fourteen years earns magnanimity. (Teddy) 

#3.  Alex (17 seasons, 4 wins, 8 cashes, 0 DAFL)

A win for each time he drafted Huston Street too early.  (El Angelo)

Either his Simpsons icon hasn't been updated for a while or it is pulling some kind of reverse Portrait of Dorian Grey on him. (Teddy)

#2.  Tucker (18 seasons, 4 wins, 8 cashes, 0 DAFL)

Not only was he perpetually in contention, Tucker yearly had the most predictable yet unique roster construction of anyone in the league: top-notch hitters, a 1-2 man bench, and cycle through a zillion pitchers while riding hot hands.  I didn't do the math, but I would bet that Tucker cut over 600 relief pitchers over the his stewardship.  And it largely worked!  It's almost like he was a precursor to modern baseball pitching usage.  (El Angelo)

Yeah, he's the one who turned the Astros on to spin rate. But I'll remember him best as the runaway winner of the "Loudest Audible Scoffs Over a Draft Conference Call" awards from 2008-2015. Those were first-ballot performances. (Teddy) 

#1.  Scot (14 seasons, 5 wins, 10 cashes, 1 DAFL)

In the money 71% of the time, the most wins, and a last place finish tossed in just to throw us off the scent.  (He promptly wasted the first pick on Hanley Ramirez!)  There's really no debate who was the dominant owner in the league; it's almost enough to let us ignore the fact he's a Texas Rangers fan.  My compliments to the ultimate champ.  (El Angelo)

He came across so reasonably over email, too. Even so, I like to assume that he spent all our money on needle drugs and puppy catapults. Makes it easier, somehow. (Teddy)

*  *  *

Finally, for posterity, here are the final statistical standings. Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Es.

	AVG FINISH	Cashes	Cash %	Wins	Win %
Scot	4	9	0.64	5	0.36
Alex	4.1	9	0.53	4	0.24
Tucker	4.2	9	0.5	4	0.22
Jake	5.3	5	0.42	1	0.08
Chad	5.5	6	0.33	1	0.06
Darrandrew***	5.7	6	0.35	2	0.12
Angelo	6.7	4.5	0.26	0.5**	0.03
Will	7.2	2.5	0.18	0.5**	0.03
Matty G.	7.2	0	-	0	-
Corey*	7.3	1	0.07	0	-
Andy	7.4	2	0.11	0	-
Ben	7.6	0	-	0	-
Jon	8.3	1	0.06	0	-
Sahil	8.8	0	-	0	-
Barto	9	0	-	0	-
Vihal	9	0	-	0	-
Other Scot	9	0	-	0	-
Mike*	9	0	-	0	-
Val	12	0	-	0	-
	* Corey split '07 with Mike; finish assigned to Mike
** Co-owners in year of victory
	† ***Coupled as an entry because of past joint ownership

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Season Preview: The Gowanus Superfunders

On February 27, 2007, I emailed Teddy a Word document containing that 2007 season's inaugural TA, which we had been posting on the league's message board since 2004. A standard series of transactions were included, culminating with the line: "Hey Jim Duquette? Fuck you!" which I stand by today. The email I got in response from Teddy was life-altering:

What do you say to posting these things on a blog this season? We could fill in with whatever random sports stuff comes to us, but build it around this.

From there, a blog was born. (Random fact: our original name was going to be The Gowanus Record, but that was taken at the time.) Since then, we've used this vehicle to populate the interwebs with ruminations on soccer, horse racing, Massachusetts politics and yes, this fake league about real players. A great run it has been.

Three years and over 300 posts later, the blog has come back full circle by Senor Teddy, who's incorporating the blog's name into his 2010 fantasy team, The Gowanus Superfunders. While this was prompted by the fact that the Gowanus Canal has now been put on in the bulls eye by people like Erin Brokovich, I prefer to think that he's honoring the three years of blogging that have gotten us some posts on Deadspin and horrified sickos in Pakistan. So let's get down to brass tacks: will this be the first year since we started the blog that Teddy finishes with more than 78 points?

Infield

Perhaps I'm not the best person to speak about this infield because while it's talented and productive, it's full of guys I don't like. Ryan Howard is a veritable fantasy stud, but one from which I expect a decline because still he can't hit lefties and has been inordinately lucky in the health department (both his and his teammates, which gives him insane RBI numbers). Mark Reynolds may have redefined the Three True Outcomes theory last year by walking, striking out or homering in a whopping 343 trips to the plate, good for 52.4% of his plate appearances. We haven't seen a year like that since Rob Deer's 1991 campaign, where he went TTO 53.6% of the time. He's probably going to be a productive player again this year, especially at the abyss known as third base, but another 44 home run campaign is probably wishful thinking.

Beyond the corner boppers, things remain interesting but not to my liking. Napoli and Ianetta sound like a couple of guys I'd like to have Sunday dinner with at Bamonte's not guys to anchor the catcher's position. Brian Roberts has gone from 50 to 30 steals in two years, making him useful but not a stud. And Marco Scutaro went to Boston for defensive purposes. Overall, the infield is definitely above average but less strong than I initially thought.

Outfield

A stud and some finger-crossing. Ryan Braun is probably the best fantasy outfielder in baseball, so you get some leeway for the other spots, which is good because they'll probably need it. Carlos Gonzalez showed promise as a potential 20-20 guy for the Rox last year, but still has under 600 AB's and has trouble staying healthy. Adam Jones has Future Star written all over him, but again, can't stay healthy. Carlos Beltran would have been a top-10 pick had he been healthy and not on the Met Injury Vortex of Doom. If he returns in one piece in June, he's a big plus this year and/or a nice trade chit. The wildcard here is Ray rookie Sean Rodriguez, who may get squeezed out of time if Matt Joyce or Desmond Jennings light it up early. I like 2 of these 4 to pan out this year, making this a solid group.

Starting Pitching

After keeping exactly one starter (Ubaldo Jimenez), draft trades and machinations have yielded an intriguing rotation that includes Johan St. Johan, Cole Hamels, and Jake Peavy. There's a lot of issues there--Johan and Peavy were quite injured last year, Hamels' numbers went through the roof in '09 and Jimenez is still a Rockie last time I checked--but that's a lot of talent atop the rotation. Further making this a deep rotation are Cuban superstar Aroldis Chapman, known okay pitchers Dirty Sanchez and Ervin Santana, and injury wildcard Johnny Cueto. The variance on these guys is pretty high as we can see a case where this squad is out of DL spots in mid-May. But it's a high upside rotation that should produce a lot of strikeouts and W's. Which is good, because...

Relief Pitching

...this is the roster's gaping hole. Jon Papelbon needs no introduction, but after that it's quite dicey. With the tandem of Mike Gonzalez and Jim Johnson, the Cesspools have the two relievers tabbed to end games for the O's without actually retaining a good pitcher. Neftali Feliz is probably the 3rd most talented arm on the roster, but he's currently pitching the 8th inning for the Rangers in a bandbox. Brandon League is in a better situation--good park, good D, good team--but is also behind David Aardsma until he blows up. Have to think some of the starting pitching depth is going to be flipped for a closer before Father's Day.

Outlook

I probably should like this team more than I do, because it's well-constructed and deep in both pitching and offense. But Teddy's managed to acquire no fewer than 6 guys that were on my "stay away" list for this year. Given that I haven't finished above 4th since 2003, this is probably for Teddy's benefit. Still, I see this as a team that's slated to finish somewhere between 3rd and 6th without some improvements, and possibly worse if those pitching arms fall off.

Vacation

Saturday marks the end of an era for the Wankdorf League: our 12th member and my esteemed co-author Teddy, is getting married to a lovely and beautiful girl, meaning there are no more single members. This also means that they will be cavorting in the Southern Hemisphere until late April (by when the Orioles will be 10 games out), and I'm taking the opportunity to take a week off. So expect little content until 4/7 or so. And congrats to Teddy!

Horn-Tooting and So Forth

The Gowanus Rotisserie Baseball Gazette just turned 1 year old. Much to our surprise, we've somehow accumulated 16,000 hits in that time, so thanks to the people out there who appear to be reading the damn thing, and Deadspin for the links that have driven much of that traffic. With baseball season starting soon, the site is going to turn back into a weird melange of stuff specific to our fantasy league, and more general items. We'll try to keep everybody up to speed regardless. Cheers.

Justify Your Existence

The recent passing of David Halberstam led me to re-read The Teammates, Halberstam's book about the friendship between 1940's-era Red Sox Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Dom (Not the Misanthropic One) DiMaggio. The book was written in the twilight of Halberstam's career, and his realization of that fact lent itself well to the overall elegaic tone of the book, which ends with Williams's death in 2003.

Upon re-reading, however, I was actually most fascinated by the book's appendix, which contains career stats for each of the four teammates. More specifically, Williams's 1941 season jumped out at me in a way it hadn't before. Just about every serious baseball fan knows that 1941 was one of the great seasons in baseball history, the year in which Williams hit .406 and threw in a walk-off home run in the All-Star game for good measure, but lost the MVP vote to Joe (Very Much the Misanthropic One) DiMaggio and his 56-game hit streak.

But I hadn't gone back to look at that season since the mainstreaming of sabermetric analysis changed the way we (or at least I) look at stats. Two things from the stat line in Halbertsam's book really stood out once I looked over it with a more modern eye.

First of all, Williams's slash line that year was .406/.553/.735, for a neat little OPS of 1288, and an OPS+ of 235 (league average OPS+ is set at 100, and the stat adjusts for ballpark and era). Barry Bonds and his pharmacist have since teamed up to better those numbers, but they're still boggling to see in print. An OPS+ of 235 means that Williams's bat was more than twice as valuable than that of a league average player that season. That's insane.

But not quite as insane as the second point, which is one that I'd never quite realized before: Williams put up that line in his age-22 season. Twenty-mother-fucking-two.

Can you imagine the media frenzy that would erupt now if some 22 year-old kid showed up and hit .400? Peter Gammons would have (another) stroke. John Kruk's ball would ascend into his abdomen. Joe Morgan would criticize the kid for clogging up the bases (OK, so some things would stay the same). Just for reference, here are the age-22 seasons of some recent phenoms:

Ken Grffey, Jr.: .308 /.361 /.535 (OPS+ 148)
Albert Pujols: .314 /.394 /.561 (OPS+ 155)
Miguel Cabrera: .323 /.385/ .561 (OPS + 151)

Nifty and all, but not even close to Ted's season. That kind of work is essentially unprecedented and unduplicated for that point in the development curve (which tends to peak around age 27 for ballplayers as a population).

So, what does all this have to do with a fantasy baseball blog? Well, not a ton, honestly. But I think there is something here that points to the allure of fantasy baseball. I can't think of another sport where someone can get a real charge out of looking over a line in a player's career stats.

This is not a particularly original thought, but the historical language of baseball is numbers. Similarly, the language of fantasy baseball is almost entirely numbers (except here at the GRBG, where it's a mix of numbers and dick jokes). That means there's an overlap between an appreciation of the history of real baseball and an appreciation of the here-and-now of fantasy baseball that I think a lot of people undersell. And that's why we here at the GRBG don't mind focusing so heavily on fantasy stuff--at the end of the day, it's all just thinking about baseball.

I recognize that, coming as it does on the heels of Ang's increasingly influential Derby previews, this post makes a bunch of quasi-serious ones in a row. Accordingly, the GRBG promises that the next post will contain at least one Ryan "The Cum" Dempster joke to compensate. You gotta know your strengths.