What does Dolly Parton sing when she’s lying in the bathtub?

This week’s music: Islands in the Stream by Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton

My Take:

Much to my amazement, as I sat in McDonald’s eating my McChicken, a familiar tune that Alisa loves came on. That’s right, Freeze Frame. Apparently that song is much better than any of us thought. So a shout-out to J. Geils, way to hide a great song (I guess?) inside a crappy song. You’re like DaVinci or something.

I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane:

2004

2005

2006

2008

2009

Given Nick’s recent surge, he could be well on his way to being repeat champs!

Also, does anyone know how Nick figures out when guys are going to be hot or coming off the DL and could you share that info with me? Thanks.

Average Ranks For the Week

	Batters	Pitchers
Hello and BaZambo	334	323
Basement Dwellers	567	357
BeanBallers	304	458
Monroe Struts	274	565

Last Week’s Batting Hotties: (according to Yahoo!)
   Hello and BaZambo: Carlos Gonzalez –OF (#1 for the Week)                                   

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
16/30	10	4	7	2	.533	1.626

  Basement Dwellers: Brandon Phillips (#31 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
8/26	6	1	7	1	.308	.934

  BeanBallers: Dan Uggla- 2B (#4 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
7/24	10	5	7	1	.292	1.391

  Monroe Struts: Jose Bautista – 3B, OF (#2 for the week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
12/22	8	5	13	0	.545	1.994

  Free Agent: Juan Pierre- OF (#6 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
12/25	6	0	5	4	.480	1.072

Last Week’s Batting Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #1499 Matt Kemp -OF (2/19, 0R, 0HR, 1RBI, 0SB, .105, .255)
  Basement Dwellers: #1407 Arod-3B (3/25, 1R, 0HR, 4RBI, 0SB, .120, .339)
  BeanBallers: #816 Adrian Gonzalez-1B  (7/23, 1R, 0HR, 4RBI, 0SB, .304, .664)
  Monroe Struts: #1362 Buster Posey -C (5/25, 2R, 0HR, 1RBI, 0SB, .200, .526)

Last Week’s Pitching Hotties:
  Hello and BaZambo: Roy Halladay-SP(#37)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
9.0	1	0	1.00	0.67	9.00	1

  Basement Dwellers:Matt Garza-SP(#12)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
16.0	1	0	2.25	0.44	8.44	1

  BeanBallers: Matt Capps–RP (#32)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
3.0	0	3	0.00	0.33	9.00	0

  Monroe Struts: Gavin Floyd -SP (#9)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
14.0	2	0	0.64	0.86	7.07	2

  Free Agent: Francisco Liriano –SP,RP (#3)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
14.0	2	0	0.00	0.50	10.93	2

Last Week’s Pitching Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #1520 Felix Hernandez-SP (14.0IP, 0W, 0SV, 4.50 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 4.50 K/9, 1QS)
  Basement Dwellers: #Zack Greinke-SP (12.0IP, 1W, 0SV, 8.25 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, 9.75 K/9, 1QS)
  BeanBallers: #1539 Josh Johnson-SP (12.2IP, 0W, 0SV, 5.68ERA, 1.74WHIP, 7.11 K/9, 1QS)
  Monroe Struts: #1504 CC Sabathia-SP (13.2IP, 0W, 0SV, 3.29 ERA, 1.68WHIP, 5.27 K/9, 2QS)

Freeze-Frame! Now Freeze!

This week’s music: Freeze Frame by J. Geils Band – Because I’d like the scoring to freeze

My Take:

Average Ranks For the Week

	Batters	Pitchers
Hello and BaZambo	515	310
Basement Dwellers	506	366
BeanBallers	323	489
Monroe Struts	416	435

Last Week’s Batting Hotties: (according to Yahoo!)
   Hello and BaZambo: Aramis Ramirez-3B (#4 for the Week)                                   

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
9/25	5	4	10	0	.360	1.233

  Basement Dwellers: Mark Teixeira –1B (#2 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
5/10	6	1	2	1	.500	1.715

  BeanBallers: Rickie Weeks - 2B (#9 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
7/27	7	3	7	1	.259	1.098

  Monroe Struts: Jose Bautista – 3B, OF (#22 for the week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
10/30	3	2	9	1	.333	.988

  Free Agent: Luke Scott– 1B, OF (#1 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
13/27	6	4	8	0	.481	1.537

Last Week’s Batting Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #1441 Miguel Olivo -C (1/15, 0R, 0HR, 0RBI, 1SB, .067, .192)
  Basement Dwellers: #1501 Brandon Phillips -2B (3/25, 1R, 0HR, 0RBI, 0SB, .120, .385)
  BeanBallers: #1024 Marlon Byrd-OF  (5/24, 1R, 0HR, 2RBI, 0SB, .208, .571)
  Monroe Struts: #1488 David Wright-3B (5/29, 0R, 0HR, 1RBI, 0SB, .172, .460)

Last Week’s Pitching Hotties:
  Hello and BaZambo: Brian Wilson -RP(#12)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
14	0	4	0.00	0.92	12.46	0

  Basement Dwellers: Neftali Feliz-RP (#39)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
3.2	0	4	2.45	0.82	7.36	0

  BeanBallers: Tim Hudson –SP (#70)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
7.0	1	0	0.00	0.71	5.14	1

  Monroe Struts: John Axford-RP (#26)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
4.2	1	3	1.93	1.07	9.64	1

  Free Agent: Johnny Cueto –SP (#19)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
14.0	2	0	1.29	.093	6.43	2

Last Week’s Pitching Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #1512 Tim Lincecum-SP (12.2IP, 0W, 0SV, 4.97 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 4.97 K/9, 1QS)
  Basement Dwellers: #1509 Matt Garza-SP (6.1IP, 0W, 0SV, 9.95 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 7.11 K/9, 0QS)
  BeanBallers: #1542 Ubaldo Jimenez-SP (7.1IP, 0W, 0SV, 12.27ERA, 2.45WHIP, 8.59 K/9, 0QS)
  Monroe Struts: #1421 Jonathon Broxton-RP (2.1IP, 0W, 0SV, 11.57 ERA, 2.14WHIP, 7.71 K/9, 0QS)

Graph Time!

Chug-a-Lug

This week’s music:  In honor of the upcoming lake weekend, Chug-A-Lug by Roger Miller

My Take: Post All Star Game these teams, especially pitchers were dogs. In trying to calculate weekly average ranks, I decided I would leave out players on the DL and who didn’t post any stats. That complicated the mess this week. Each team had several players, especially pitchers, who haven’t played because of the All Star Break. That said, pitching this week was Horrid, yes, capital “H” Horrid. Greg’s team “pitched” the best and only averaged a ranking of 604. When you consider that in the weeks that I’ve calculated average, only two teams have been above 600 for the week, this week’s pitching effort truly stands out as terrible.

Batting was in line with where it has been in the past. Nick’s team definitely slowed down. Dad had a great week for batting stats, leading weekly totals and showing improvement in every category except steals. Are the BeanBallers gearing up for a second half run?

This may or may not come back, I can’t really find any easy way to do this that is readable so we’ll see. This chart just shows the change from last week’s totals to this week’s total. I don’t know if it’s useful, but coupled with the graphs, it may give you idea of what is happening in each category or it may just be rubbish. Who knows?

Average Ranks For the Week

	Batters	Pitchers
Hello and BaZambo	609	654
Basement Dwellers	305	604
BeanBallers	256	745
Monroe Struts	438	678

Last Week’s Batting Hotties: (according to Yahoo!)
   Hello and BaZambo: Robinson Cano– 2B (#78 for the Week)                                   

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
4/12	3	1	3	0	.333	1.218

  Basement Dwellers: Chase Headley-3B,OF (#3 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
5/10	6	1	2	1	.500	1.715

  BeanBallers: Rickie Weeks - 2B (#4 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
7/17	5	2	4	0	.412	1.298

  Monroe Struts: Ryan Howard-1B (#1 for the week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
6/15	4	4	8	0	.400	1.674

  Free Agent: Carlos Pena– 1B (#5 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
6/13	3	2	6	0	.462	1.577

Last Week’s Batting Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #1450 Hanley Ramirez-SS (2/10, 0R, 0HR, 0RBI, 0SB, .200, .533)
  Basement Dwellers: #1370 Magglio Ordonez-OF (3/15, 1R, 0HR, 1RBI, 0SB, .200, .627)
  BeanBallers: #1313 Denard Span-OF  (4/18, 1R, 0HR, 2RBI, 0SB, .222, .485)
  Monroe Struts: #1408 Ichiro Suzuki-OF (2/15, 0R, 0HR, 3RBI, 0SB, .133, .435)

Last Week’s Pitching Hotties:
  Hello and BaZambo: Tim Lincecum-SP (#12)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
9.0	1	0	0.00	0.78	5.00	1

  Basement Dwellers: Chris Carpenter-SP (#13)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
8.0	1	0	1.12	0.50	6.75	1

  BeanBallers: Josh Johnson-SP (#33)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
6.0	1	0	0.00	1.17	10.50	1

  Monroe Struts: Adam Wainwright-SP (#57)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
6.0	1	0	0.00	1.00	4.50	1

  Free Agent: Barry Zito-SP (#2)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
8.0	1	0	0.00	0.50	11.25	1

Last Week’s Pitching Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #1535 David Price-SP (5.0IP, 0W, 0SV, 12.60 ERA, 2.20 WHIP, 5.40 K/9, 0QS)
  Basement Dwellers: #1525 Clayton Kershaw-SP (4.1IP, 0W, 0SV, 8.31 ERA, 2.54 WHIP, 2.08 K/9, 0QS)
  BeanBallers: #1523 Tim Hudson-SP (6.2IP, 0W, 0SV, 8.10ERA, 1.50WHIP, 2.70 K/9, 0QS)
  Monroe Struts: #1500 Jonathon Broxton-RP (1.1IP, 0W, 0SV, 13.50 ERA, 4.50WHIP, 0.00 K/9, 0QS)

Graph Time!

We’re Back

This week’s music:  We’re Coming Back by Cock Sparrer
                                   We’re Back by Bobby Brown
                                   We’re Back by In-Equality
                                   Baby Got Back by Sir Mix a Lot

My Take: Good God, What was I thinking when I started this thing!?   

There aren’t really any trends that stand out this week. Greg scored 46 RBI’s  and 13 HR’s this week, most for a week this season, but his average and OPS both dropped. Nick saw the biggest gain in OPS and average and steals, but had fewest HR’s and RBI’s.

There weren’t really any changes in this week's pitching. Everyone’s ERA (but Greg) and WHIP are continuing to go down. Really there isn’t anything exciting to report. Some weirdness though, Matt Garza (Basement Dwellers) scored a win, a save, and a quality start in 6.2 innings, don’t see that very often.

These stats are going to be skewed because I’m not pulling the data until Wednesday instead of Monday. Ok, I’m not sure how Yahoo! decides player rankings because Chase Utley who didn’t play because he’s on the DL was better than 2 of players who actually played.

Average Ranks For the Week

	Batters	Pitchers
Hello and BaZambo	214	94
Basement Dwellers	501	941
BeanBallers	428	271
Monroe Struts	473	350

Last Week’s Batting Hotties: (according to Yahoo!)
   Hello and BaZambo: Carlos Gonzalez – OF (#14 for the Week)                                   

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
10/21	5	2	5	0	.476	1.357

  Basement Dwellers: Matt Holliday-OF (#4 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
7/21	6	4	9	0	.33	1.316

  BeanBallers: Carlos Quentin-OF (#5 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
5/10	5	4	8	0	.500	2.283

  Monroe Struts: Carl Crawford (#3 for the week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
7/20	6	3	7	2	.350	1.259

  Free Agent: Buster Posey – C, 1B (#1 for the Week)

H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
12/20	7	4	12	0	.600	2.002

Last Week’s Batting Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: # 924 Justin Morneau (2/4, 0R, 0HR, 0RBI, 0SB, .500, 1.000)
  Basement Dwellers: #1374 BIG Jorge Posada-C (4/17, 0R, 0HR, 1RBI, 0SB, .235, .644)
  BeanBallers: #1438 Mike Aviles-2B, SS (0/9, 0R, 0HR, 1RBI, 0SB, .000, .167)
  Monroe Struts: #1393 Joe Mauer-C (2/15, 2R, 0HR, 0RBI, 0SB, .133, .321)

Last Week’s Pitching Hotties:
  Hello and BaZambo: Roy Halladay-SP (#28)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
9.0	0	0	0.00	0.67	9.00	1

  Basement Dwellers: Matt Garza–SP (#21)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
6.2	1	1	0.00	.060	2.70	1

  BeanBallers: Josh Johnson-SP (#22)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
8.0	1	0	0.00	0.88	9.00	1

  Monroe Struts: Billy Wagner-RP (#23)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
3.0	0	2	0.00	0.00	9.00	0

  Free Agent: John Danks-SP (#7)

IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
9.0	1	0	0.00	0.22	7.00	1

Last Week’s Pitching Notties:
  Hello and BaZambo: #281 Rafael Soriano-RP (1.0IP, 0W, 0SV, 0.00 ERA, 0.00 WHIP, 0.00 K/9, 0QS)
  Basement Dwellers: #1491 Chris Carpenter-SP (6.0IP, 0W, 0SV, 6.00 ERA, 1.83 WHIP, 4.50 K/9, 0QS)
  BeanBallers: #1426 Dan Haren-SP (6.2IP, 0W, 0SV, 4.05ERA, 1.80WHIP, 8.10 K/9, 1QS)
  Monroe Struts: #1525 Mike Pelfrey-SP (4.0IP,0W, 0SV, 9.00 ERA, 3.75WHIP, 4.50 K/9, 0QS)

Graph Time!

How much is that doggy in the window?

In talking with Nick about his team, he told me he felt that he went out got the best players at each infield position. He did this through a variety of trades and free agent signings. In the draft, he picked up a ton of pitchers and wasn’t happy with he position players. He was able to deal some pitchers and position players to pick up the players he felt he needed to fill out his roster. By using spot starts in favorable situations, Nick thinks he can keep his pitching competitive even though he gave up some name guys.

Stats Fun

I thought it would be interesting to look at the trades that were made and see how the players performed before and after the trades (i.e. did switching to a new team help the player). Rather that use Yahoo’s team log that only show the stats the player posted for you team, I used Baseball Musings website that offers a day-by-day stats data base (gotta love the nerdiness of baseball). This shows stats for all the games they played during a given time frame. So here we go. (Numbers in after “Before Trade” and “After Trade” indicate games played during the time period.)

April 24 Ryan Braun for Zack Greinke

Zack Greinke - SP	Wins	Saves	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
Before Trade - 4	0	0	3.28	1.18	8.0	2
After Trade - 12	3	0	3.86	1.20	7.6	9

Ryan Braun - OF	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Before Trade - 17	14	5	20	4	.382	1.103
After Trade - 58	35	6	29	7	.280	.778

May 11 Albert Pujols & Troy Tulowitzki for Evan Longoria & Hanley Ramirez

Albert Pujols - 1B	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Before Trade -32	18	7	25	1	.320	.986
After Trade - 44	23	9	27	6	.299	.944

Troy Tulowitzki- SS	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Before Trade - 31	24	1	14	3	.311	.809
After Trade - 31	23	8	20	4	.302	.947

Evan Longoria-3B	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Before Trade - 33	30	8	29	5	.328	.995
After Trade - 42	17	5	27	7	.276	.824

Hanley Ramirez-SS	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Before Trade - 33	19	7	19	2	.288	.879
After Trade -42	23	4	27	12	.293	.843

May 29 Cliff Lee for Robinson Cano

Cliff Lee - SP	Wins	Saves	ERA	WHIP	K/9	QS
Before Trade - 6	3	0	3.22	0.99	8.5	4
After Trade - 5	3	0	1.50	0.83	7.3	5

Robinson Cano - OF	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Before Trade - 49	35	10	37	2	.359	1.007
After Trade - 27	21	5	19	0	.374	1.017

Graph Time (what would a posting be without graphs?)