Thursday Links

Here are the links for your Thursday enjoyment.

Our league has a new leader. Congrats Gilkey's Eyeballs (Luke), on dethroning the longtime ruler of La Liga - Jabberwocks (Jeff).

As for real baseball, the draft happened, and bryce harper and his ridiculous eye makeup was drafted. Then some other nameless individuals were drafted. Chances are they will remain nameless (except #8, he shall never be nameless). Check out the first round of this 2000 draft. I see 8/30 who are still in the bigs (let me know if I'm wrong, or don't and preserve my faith in my scanning skills) and Wainwright, Utley, and Gonzales are the only players in the 184 players on our collective fantasy rosters. The draft site is pretty cool, and works for other leagues as well. Check it out.

A looong post on game theory and baseball. It's worth a read.

Moving on to fantasy theory, should you always roll with your studs or play pitching matchups?

Jamie Moyer is old.

What is the best path around the bases? And is that study believable?

And this.

World Cup Wednesdays

Don't miss the blog's reaction to the Stephen Strasburg debut in the post below.

The world is getting boners for soccer-even google. (scroll to the bottom of that screen). From now until the end of the world cup, I'm going to do some world cup links on Wednesdays(because Wednesday and World cup both start with W). Since most of you have joined the fantasy world cup game we're playing, this seems an appropriate spot for the material. (Hint: click that link to join if you have not yet done so.) I'll still do Thursday baseball links, so if you are a true amurcan, you can just avoid Wednesdays.

The world cup starts Friday. Does anyone else rock an iphone? I never know if I'm talking to anyone but myself. This handy app from espn (free dollas and free cents) will tell you what time the games are on in your time zone, scores, standings, etc. You can program it to send you texts when your favorite countries are going to play.

Why are we interested in soccer? Probably because we long to be intellectuals.

Wishing to dominate the world cup fantasy league? Would it help to know which jerseys are most counterfeited in china?

An interesting question - why aren't world powers the best at soccer? A weak attempt at an answer, but I like the comparison to women's soccer.

You know that low-pitched buzzing you hear on the television whenever teams are playing soccer? It's a loud, low-pitched buzz in real life. I had a low quality, plastic vuvuzela but I was still able to piss off people at a KC Wizards game.

Not much can top the supercommercial from Nike. But the adidas commercial has snoop.

and this.

East Coast/West Coast

I typically don't care for the Cardinals playing on the West Coast as the 10 o'clock start time means that it could be 1 or later before the game ends. It's especially frustrating when they play the Dodgers because no one seems to get to those games on time or stay until the end anyway, so I feel they should just accommodate the Cards' fans in other time zones (sorry Jake).

Tonight however is a different story. By delaying the Cards' game until 10:10 I can watch the Pirates and Nationals get at it without having to flip back and forth. I drafted Stephen Strasburg for $5 and he was the third player I added to my team, the first pitcher. He was the 37th player nominated in our draft, which incidentally is his uniform number. Coincidence? I think not.

If you all want to concede the league to me now, that's fine.

Week 9 Roto Scores

. Hitting R PTS HR PTS RBI PTS SB PTS AVG PTS OPS PTS CYC PTS Total RANK . Doc's LSD No-No 45 8 9 6.5 40 8 8 7 0.287 5 0.878 7 0 4.5 46 1 . Jabberwocks 43 7 9 6.5 38 7 12 8 0.306 7 0.857 5 0 4.5 45 2 . Gilkey's Eyeballs 38 6 9 6.5 36 6 5 5 0.3 6 0.865 6 0 4.5 40 3 . The Josh Hamiltoes 26 1 7 3 34 5 4 3.5 0.332 8 0.914 8 0 4.5 33 4 . Olerud Helmeteers 27 2 9 6.5 29 2 4 3.5 0.258 4 0.783 4 0 4.5 26.5 5 . Jason Bere's Sluggers 30 4 6 2 30 3 6 6 0.246 2 0.73 2 0 4.5 23.5 6 . Tito Landrum Express 34 5 8 4 28 1 3 1.5 0.249 3 0.748 3 0 4.5 22 7 . The Old Mill 29 3 5 1 31 4 3 1.5 0.214 1 0.665 1 0 4.5 16 8 . . . Pitching W PTS S PTS K PTS ERA PTS WHIP PTS K/BB PTS NH PTS Total RANK . Tito Landrum Express 4 6 4 6.5 51 5 2.1 6 0.84 8 4.25 7 0 4.5 43 1 . Jason Bere's Sluggers 7 8 3 3 52 6 1.56 8 1.06 7 2.74 5 0 4.5 41.5 2 . Gilkey's Eyeballs 4 6 3 3 56 8 2.47 4 1.15 6 3.73 6 0 4.5 37.5 3 . The Josh Hamiltoes 4 6 4 6.5 53 7 3.67 3 1.46 1 2.65 4 0 4.5 32 4 . The Old Mill 2 2 4 6.5 31 2 4.54 2 1.31 3 5.17 8 0 4.5 28 5 . Doc's LSD No-No 2 2 4 6.5 27 1 1.96 7 1.24 4 2.25 2 0 4.5 27 6 . Jabberwocks 2 2 2 1 34 3 2.3 5 1.17 5 2.43 3 0 4.5 23.5 7 . Olerud Helmeteers 3 4 3 3 41 4 4.74 1 1.44 2 2.16 1 0 4.5 19.5 8

. . . . Overall PTS RANK . Gilkey's Eyeballs 77.5 1 . Doc's LSD No-No 73 2 . Jabberwocks 68.5 3 . Tito Landrum Express 65 4 . Jason Bere's Sluggers 65 4 . The Josh Hamiltoes 65 4 . Olerud Helmeteers 46 7 . The Old Mill 44 8 . . . Hitting Player of the Week R HR RBI SB AVG OPS CYC . Mike Napoli, C, Doc's LSD No-No 8 2 8 1 0.333 0.944 0 . . Pitching Player of the Week W S K ERA WHIP K/BB NH . Adam Wainwright, SP, Tito Landrum Express 1 0 8 0 0.33 8 0 .

. . Hitting Bench Stud R HR RBI SB AVG OPS CYC . Colby Rasmus, CF, Doc's LSD No-No 8 3 9 1 0.5 1.577 0 . . Pitching Bench Stud W S K ERA WHIP K/BB NH . Wandy Rodriguez, SP, Gilkey's Eyeballs 1 0 8 1.8 1.6 2.67 0 . . . Hitting Lead Balloon R HR RBI SB AVG OPS CYC . Denard Span, CF, Jason Bere's Sluggers 1 0 0 0 0.067 0.23 0 . . Pitching Lead Balloon W S K ERA WHIP K/BB NH . Roy Oswalt, SP, Olerud Helmeteers 0 0 4 9.64 1.82 1 0 . . . Hitting Unsigned Player of the Week R HR RBI SB AVG OPS CYC . Lance Berkman, 1B, Houston Astros 6 1 10 1 0.4 1.005 0 . . Pitching Unsigned Player of the Week W S K ERA WHIP K/BB NH . Javier Vazquez, SP, New York Yankees 2 0 16 1.93 0.71 3.2 0

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Overall Roto Stats

. Hitting R PTS HR PTS RBI PTS SB PTS AVG PTS OPS PTS CYC PTS Total RANK . Gilkey's Eyeballs 303 5 78 7 297 6 42 4.5 0.283 7 0.859 8 0 4.5 42 1 . Jabberwocks 328 8 58 2 277 3 90 8 0.309 8 0.858 7 0 4.5 40.5 2 . The Old Mill 299 4 77 6 313 8 42 4.5 0.275 4 0.802 5 0 4.5 36 3 . The Josh Hamiltoes 298 3 84 8 304 7 33 1 0.278 5 0.832 6 0 4.5 34.5 4 . Jason Bere's Sluggers 322 7 64 3 271 2 47 6 0.279 6 0.798 4 0 4.5 32.5 5 . Olerud Helmeteers 316 6 75 5 280 4 64 7 0.258 2 0.769 2 0 4.5 30.5 6 . Doc's LSD No-No 294 2 72 4 257 1 38 2 0.261 3 0.788 3 0 4.5 19.5 7 . Tito Landrum Express 269 1 56 1 294 5 40 3 0.251 1 0.732 1 0 4.5 16.5 8 . . . Pitching W PTS S PTS K PTS ERA PTS WHIP PTS K/BB PTS NH PTS Total RANK . Jason Bere's Sluggers 34 8 24 3 372 5 2.77 8 1.11 8 2.51 2 1 7.5 41.5 1 . Tito Landrum Express 33 7 27 6 426 6 3.17 7 1.17 6 2.86 6 0 3.5 41.5 1 . The Josh Hamiltoes 24 2.5 28 8 428 7 3.21 6 1.24 4 2.82 5 0 3.5 36 3 . Gilkey's Eyeballs 23 1 27 6 353 3 3.22 5 1.15 7 2.89 7 0 3.5 32.5 4 . The Old Mill 28 5 22 2 311 1.5 3.69 2 1.29 2 3.05 8 1 7.5 28 5 . Doc's LSD No-No 32 6 19 1 357 4 3.35 4 1.19 5 2.81 4 0 3.5 27.5 6 . Olerud Helmeteers 24 2.5 26 4 460 8 3.46 3 1.28 3 2.77 3 0 3.5 27 7 . Jabberwocks 26 4 27 6 311 1.5 3.88 1 1.35 1 2.14 1 0 3.5 18 8

. . . . Overall PTS RANK . Gilkey's Eyeballs 74.5 1 . Jason Bere's Sluggers 74 2 . The Josh Hamiltoes 70.5 3 . The Old Mill 64 4 . Jabberwocks 58.5 5 . Tito Landrum Express 58 6 . Olerud Helmeteers 57.5 7 . Doc's LSD No-No 47 8 .

Thursday Links

Happy Thursday, all. This fantasy league is really anyone's game. Jeff has long been atop the leaderboard, but he's now only ahead by one half of a game. Jamie used an especially strong week (aided by Halladay's perfect game) to jump to within 1.5 games of the lead. People are flying up and down the standings.

Honestly, when I added the cycles and no-hitters as categories, I thought we would see more cycles than no-hitters (if we saw any no-hitters). It turns out we have had 4 (though only 3 counted). The blown perfect game call has a of people calling for instant. replay. now. Thanks for waiting so long to embrace technology, old people. By the way, did I tell you I was at Halladay's perfect game?

Say goodbye to an old friend -the sweet, smooth, southpaw stroke of the eternal Ken Griffey Jr. If you ever need some KGJ baseball cards, I think Jamie has about 630.

I'm not kidding about this. Buy a ticket for Sacramento, come stay with me, and we'll go up to Chico (about 2 hours from my place) - hit the seirra nevada brewery, then go to a baseball game and watch this sidearm kuckleball lady pitch. But it gets better, as Yoshida got an RBI single in her first at bat. So buy a ticket.

I don't know if you saw (it was a late game), but the Dodgers won Monday's game with a balk-off. This prompted ESPN to release a list of a bunch of weird walk-offs. I'm glad they did. Another controversial balk call has people thinking we should review the balk rules. What do you think?

Wicked-awesome article on home field advantage.

Wicked-awesome article on home field disdadvantage.

Two wicked-awesome articles about walking. pujols.

Wicked. Awesome.

And this.

And, come play fantasy world cup with our league (plus mike and andrew if they say yes).

The New Denkinger

Looks like Jim Joyce will be forever hated in the Motor City. But come on, three perfect games in the span of a month? What's going on?