You’re All Worthless and Weak

Every notice how every now and then your fantasy baseball team is complete pants? Fortunately you don’t lose much ground because the other teams was equally as craptastic.

At one point last night my “team”—yes, I realize it’s a fake team playing fake games, but one thing I like about fantasy baseball is that it lets me see some things statistically that I might not otherwise notice—was a fierce 3-24. I think Kotchman got a hit in his last a bat to raise the batting average to .160 (with 8 K’s to boot).

And these aren’t bottom of the order guys. Kotchman is hitting .340 on the season. Rafael Furcal, Josh Hamilton, Matt Holliday, Aramis Ramirez, Connor Jackson, these are all guys hitting about .300 or better. Shit Furcal is hitting .370!

 

I Don’t Know Dick, But Fortunately Vegas Doesn’t Either.

Okay, so Week Two of us sending you to the AFDC line has passed. And if you haven’t figured out yet to take our advice and bet the opposite, you are dumber than we are.

I went 1-3.

Again.

But I could have easily gone 4-0.

No, no. Hear me out. Alabama was putting a beat down on Houston, but the Tide not only let the Cougars back in, they let them fool around with their wife. Oklahoma missed a throat-cutting field goal inside the last minute and I saw that line close to as low as 9 before kickoff (Hey, we have to get this going on Wednesday). And Kansas State? I just refused to believe they lost to Kansas.

 

Brady Anderson Has Nothing to Hide

Eventually I’ll do more than suggest certain players have, oh, peculiar statistical phenomena associated with their numbers. In fact, that day is today because I’m not even going to do any statistical analysis with former Baltimore Oriole Brady Anderson.

Later I will, but not today. Today, it’s just raw data. This was suggested in the comments to the Bonds post below. The commenter singled out Brett Boone, but I prefer showing the following numbers with Brady Anderson. No reason.

Anderson went from Boston to Baltimore in 1988. He stayed in “The Greatest City in America” (their motto, not mine) until 2001 before an unremarkable 34-game farewell campaign with the Tribe (the baseball team, not the Jews) the following year.

 

Carlos Zambrano Doesn’t Like Money as Much as Roger Clemens

Big Z might have been wise to take a page from the Roger Clemens playbook and just skip April.

And most of May if he could have gotten away with it, because Zambrano has been costing himself potential millions by starting the season on time and starting the season with a Bruce Chen impersonation.

Zambrano, who entered the season as the Cubs’ staff ace, has been anything but.

On Thursday (May 10) Zambrano was touched up for 6 runs in a loss to the Pirates. In fairness, only 4 were earned. Matt Murton started checking out the Lincoln Park Trixies in the crowd before squeezing a fly ball out. The ball glanced off the outside of his glove and the muff led to a couple of unearned runs for the ‘Burgh. Bummer because the Cubs came back with a couple of late homers to pull within 6-4. Take the two unearned runs off the board, and Big Z is off the hook for the loss.

 

Beisbol Been Barry Barry Good to, uh… Barry

Lies and Damn Lies

Barry Bonds is on the verge of breaking Hank Aaron’s all time home run record in Major League Baseball. It’s inevitable. In fact by the time you read this it might have already have happened. But, eh, nobody seems to care much. Well, nobody outside of the Bay Area or Bristol, Connecticut.

This probably stems from the fact that hardly anybody not being paid by Barry seems to like Barry very much and that people think he’s cheated his way to the record through the use of various anabolic steroids, growth hormones (both human and cow apparently), and a couple of BALCO products known as “the cream” and “the clear.”

And of course flaxseed oil.

But other than once for amphetamines, Bonds has never tested positive for any PEDs. Still, this hasn’t ended the speculation.

For a few reasons there is still rampant suspicion that Bonds’ inflated power numbers come from better living through chemistry. First, there is his involvement with BALCO, Victor Conte, and trainer Greg Anderson. Then there’s this. Finally, just look at Barry. There has clearly been a dramatic change in his physique from his earliest days as a skinny kid in a Pittsburgh Pirate uniform to the Giant (both senses) he is today.

To quote Stuart Mackenzie, “Look at the size that boy’s heed. I’m not kidding, it’s like an orange on a toothpick.”

Still most of the reporting remains focused on the feds, the remnants of the BALCO scandal, the toothless investigation by the Mitchell committee, or some other informant du jour. It’s almost as if the media and MLB are both waiting for someone to hand over a smoking gun registered to Barry with his prints on the still warm grip (“Hey look, Godot!”). What there hasn’t been much of is an examination of the probability that what Barry has done was legit from a purely statistical standpoint.

The below is attempt to do just that. It’s a analysis of Bonds’ 2001 single-season record-breaking home run mark of 73. It’s long. Sorry. But, statistically, it’s interesting because Bonds really didn’t hit 73 home runs in 2001. Or at least you can almost prove it.

Admittedly that’s a bit of an irresponsible use of the word “prove.” The numbers don’t prove anything. And Bonds actually did hit 73 baseballs that cleared the fence during that season. What the numbers do show is that it was so improbable that it would almost be more rational to believe it didn’t happen.