Baseball

[Syt]

If you're actually planning on paying attention to it, you can stay and I'll leave.  I was just going to put it on autopilot like last year and see how (badly) it turns out.

Hey, I don't want to push you out. I plan on paying attention, but not numbercrunching to micromanage every possible point into my score.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Hey, I don't want to push you out. I plan on paying attention, but not numbercrunching to micromanage every possible point into my score.

No worries, I really only join LFBBL to help fill out the league.  I'll go ahead and delete the Burgermakers for this year.

Heh.  I see the draft is in ~30 minutes, and I'm on my way out the door right now.   

Edit:  Done.  Should be eight teams now.

[sbr]

If you're actually planning on paying attention to it, you can stay and I'll leave.  I was just going to put it on autopilot like last year and see how (badly) it turns out.

Hey, I don't want to push you out. I plan on paying attention, but not numbercrunching to micromanage every possible point into my score.

Good we both got in, I would have felt bad sliding in there before you.

[MadBurgerMaker]

If you're actually planning on paying attention to it, you can stay and I'll leave.  I was just going to put it on autopilot like last year and see how (badly) it turns out.

Hey, I don't want to push you out. I plan on paying attention, but not numbercrunching to micromanage every possible point into my score.

Good we both got in, I would have felt bad sliding in there before you.

Oh damn.    Do I need to rejoin to make it an even ten?

[sbr]

If you're actually planning on paying attention to it, you can stay and I'll leave.  I was just going to put it on autopilot like last year and see how (badly) it turns out.

Hey, I don't want to push you out. I plan on paying attention, but not numbercrunching to micromanage every possible point into my score.

Good we both got in, I would have felt bad sliding in there before you.

Oh damn.    Do I need to rejoin to make it an even ten?

No I was already in.   

[Syt]

Thanks, MBM.

Haven't played on Yahoo before; played on the (rather easy/simple) MLB.com site in a random league. Came out close second in my division (2x4), and overall 4th.

[MadBurgerMaker]

No problem Syt.   The Burgermakers will be back next year to dominate the basement of LFBBL.

No I was already in.   

  Okay cool.

[Syt]

The result of my draft:

C Joe Mauer (MIN)
1B Carlos Pena (TB)
2B Orlando Hudson (MIN)
3B Mark DeRosa (SF - also 1B, OF)
SS Derek Jeter (NYY)
OF Andrew McCutchen (PIT)
OF Andre Ethier (LAD)
OF Carlos Beltran (NYM)
Util Asdrubal Cabrera (CLE, 2B, SS)
BN Michael Cuddyer (MIN, 1B, OF)
BN Ian Stewart (COL, 2B, 3B)
BN Miguel Olivo (COL, C)
BN Miguel Tejada (BAL, SS)
BN Johnny Damon (DET, OF)

SP Roy Halladay (PHI)
SP Felix Hernandez (SEA)
SP Joel Pineiro (LAA)
RP Joe Nathan (MIN)
RP Brian Fuentes (LAA)
P Kevin Slowey (MIN, SP)
P Jorge De La Rosa (COL, SP)
P Frank Francisco (TEX, RP)

I'm not quite sure how the 162 game rule per position is handled. How would I get over 162 games on any position?

[sbr]

I'm not quite sure how the 162 game rule per position is handled. How would I get over 162 games on any position?

You can change your line-up every day so if you played Tejada at SS on Jeter's days off you could have more than 162 games played at that position.

Where do you see that limit?

[sbr]

Syt, Joe Nathan is out for the season.

[Syt]

Syt, Joe Nathan is out for the season.

Yeah, just read.

[Syt]

I'm not quite sure how the 162 game rule per position is handled. How would I get over 162 games on any position?

You can change your line-up every day so if you played Tejada at SS on Jeter's days off you could have more than 162 games played at that position.

Where do you see that limit?

Ah I see. Just something I read somewhere in one of the rulesheet PDFs.

[sbr]

The Twins signed Joe Mauer to an 8 year $184 million extension. 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-twins-mauerextension&prov=ap&type=lgns

[Syt]

Good for Mauer. 8 years is a long time; let's hope neither party doesn't regret the deal in 5 years.

[jimmy olsen]

Saw this and thought it was an article tailor made for you Syt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/sports/baseball/21score.html

Religion Aided a Home Run Chase, and May Have Led to Its Failure
By HOWARD MEGDAL
Published: March 19, 2010

Evidence has finally been published that seems to resolve a 72-year-old mystery. When Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers made a run at Babe Ruth's season home run record, falling two short with 58 in 1938, was he pitched around because he was Jewish?

Hank Greenberg, right, after a home run in the 1945 World Series. In 1938, he was walked a lot more as he neared Babe Ruth's season record.

It is impossible to know what was in pitchers' hearts, but it is also impossible to ignore the statistical record. In short, the American League didn't seem exactly thrilled with Greenberg's pursuit.

Until the Web site Retrosheet.org recently published game logs for the 1938 season, the subject of anti-Semitism during Greenberg's record chase was a matter of opinion.

Some members of Greenberg's family and legions of his fans believed that anti-Semitic pitchers had walked Greenberg often to keep him from a fair shot at Ruth, who set the record in 1927. Greenberg, however, called such a view "pure baloney." To shift responsibility for his falling short of the record onto others would have been out of character.

Greenberg received many more walks as he chased Ruth in 1938 than he did in the rest of his career. Almost no other hitter going after the home run record had anything like Greenberg's late-season spike in bases on balls. He had 119 walks to lead the A.L., the only time he did so, and they accounted for 17.5 percent of his 681 plate appearances.

But the way pitchers handled Greenberg early in the season was clearly different than the way they approached him as Ruth's record came into view. Greenberg had four three-walk games in the final two months of the 1938 season, three in September.

By comparison, he had no three-walk games in 1937, when he drove in 183 runs; one in 1935, when he won his first Most Valuable Player award; and three in 1940, his second M.V.P. year.

Over all, Greenberg walked in 15.9 percent of his plate appearances through the end of August 1938. In September, that rate jumped to 20.4 percent. His walk rate was 14.5 percent in 1937 and 15 percent in 1939.

Something changed down the stretch in 1938, and it was not in Greenberg's approach.

He said he felt "if I, as a Jew, hit a home run, I was hitting one against Hitler." So he had compelling reasons not to take a walk.

Greenberg's treatment stands in contrast to the other single-season record challengers. In 1932, Jimmie Foxx also finished with 58 home runs. Foxx walked in 16.6 percent of his plate appearances that season; that September, his walk rate was 17.1 percent.

Roger Maris had a season-long walk rate of 13.4 percent in 1961, the year he hit 61 home runs to break Ruth's record. That September, Maris walked in only 12.2 percent of his plate appearances.

In 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa took aim at Maris's mark, their walk rates held steady late in the season. McGwire walked in 23.8 percent of his plate appearances; from Aug. 1 through Sept. 8, when he passed Maris, he walked 24.1 percent of the time. Sosa, a free swinger, walked 10.1 percent of the time in 1998. From Aug. 1 on, that number was 11.2 percent; from Sept. 1 on, 10.4 percent.

Only Greenberg, among all these would-be home run kings, had a significant increase in his walk rate. One player with a comparable spike in walks while in pursuit of the single-season home run mark was Barry Bonds in 2001, his 73-homer year. Bonds walked in 26.7 percent of his plate appearances that season, but in 33.6 percent after Sept. 1.

This seemed to signal a paradigm shift in pitching to Bonds that lasted well beyond 2001. Bonds walked in 32.4 percent of his plate appearances the next season. By 2004, that number had jumped to 37.6 percent. What is interesting about Greenberg's case is that his increase in bases on balls was concentrated during the period he was pursuing Ruth's record.

He fell short of Ruth for other reasons as well. Greenberg played in only 155 games (Ruth played in 151 in 1927); Maris and those who came after had benefit of 162. Greenberg played before the advent of night games (and lights), so many of his at-bats came at twilight, when it was harder to see the ball. And his final game of the 1938 season was called after seven innings because of darkness.

But the statistical record stands as evidence that Greenberg's religion might have been an additional barrier.

Howard Megdal is the author of "The Baseball Talmud" and editor of The Perpetual Post.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 21, 2010, on page SP11 of the New York edition.