Kickin' Our Asses

I’ve taken a careful look at the BABI results since the new millennium, and if you’re somehow unaware, Mr. Leaguer has been kicking our asses. I mean REALLY kicking our asses.

Since the year 2000, he’s been in the money 9 out of 9 times. He’s won it 5 times, and his worst finish, in a rebuilding year after 4 consecutive wins, was 5th. His AVERAGE finish is 2nd (2.22).

He’s won 80% of the money. Only 2 other teams are net ahead, and not by much.

So here are some BABI trivia questions:

What are the other two teams that are net ahead during the past 9 years?

What team has finished in the money 8 times?

What 2 teams have finished in the money 6 times?

What two teams besides the Leaguers have not finished 11th or 12th in that period?

What other 4 teams have finished have finished first, second or third three or more times in that period?

The answers will follow at the end.

I’ve been analyzing the Leaguers’ 2008 campaign to figure out how they did it. They didn’t appear to have a strong keeper list. They kept 7 players:

C – Bard 6
3B – Atkins 19
SS – H. Ramirez 21
MI – Rollins 43
OF – Ethier 13
OF – Bourn 6
P – Gorzelanny 7

It’s not a long list. There are no monster keepers, like Kerry Wood at 3, or Ryan Braun at 5, or Matt Kemp at 10, or Ryan Ludwick at 6 (though Kemp and Ludwick weren’t obviously incredible keepers on cutdown day). Ramirez and Ethier had nice built in profits. Rollins had an off year, but he didn’t suck at 11-59-47-.277. On cutdown day, he was clearly no bargain. Bard and Gorzelanny stunk. In fact, Gorzelanny was waived before the end of April. I’ll talk about Bourn in a bit.

But there is a theme here. There were no huge mistakes. We kept Nick Johnson at 10, Ryan Zimmerman at 21 and we extended Eric Byrnes to 18. Injuries ruined their seasons. Other keepers included Francoeur at 15, Saito at 28, R. Soriano at 12, Harang at 19, Rich Hill at 13, Chad Cordero at 24, and Izzy at 24. Nasty seasons, every one of them.

Actually one of the consistent themes of the top 3 teams is that they didn’t have any ugly results from any of their keepers. Not all of them performed as well as was hoped, but none of the expensive keepers stunk.

Getting back to Michael Bourn, he was traded on 5/27 to the Lickers straight up for Adam Dunn (31-2010). Mr. Leaguer got 23 of Bourn’s 41 steals, and he got 27 of Dunn’s 40 homers and 68 of his 100 RBI’s. The totals accumulated for each team were:

Leaguers – 30 homers, 78 RBIs, 24 steals, .225 BA in 551 abs.
Lickers – 15 homers, 51 RBIs, 19 steals, .242 BA in 433 at bats.

The Leaguers paid $6 for those stats, the Lickers paid $31. Plus Bourn’s contract is dead, and Dunn, if he signs with an NL team, is a potential keeper for the Leaguers. This deal was a good one for the Leaguers.

Unlike the other 2 contending teams, the Leaguers only made two other deals. On August 5 they did a dump deal with the Bums, getting the $135 Sabathia and bums (small “b”) for Chris Iannetta and Jonathan Sanchez. Iannetta was a terrific pick, and Sanchez had his moments, though in the end, he’s still more promise than quality. Sabathia solidified the pitching for the Leaguers in the end in categories that were very close.

The other deal was celibrated on Bugger The Cartel Day on August 19, when all 3 teams at the top made deals with the Cartel. The Leaguer deal was the least significant of the three. He received Ty Wigginton, who hit .238 for the Leaguers during the last 6 weeks and Jonathan Broxton, who had 5 saves, which wasn’t enough to move the Leaguers out of last place in saves. Wigginton might be a keeper at 19 if he stays in the NL.

He didn’t do it on trades. Two deals helped some, but it probably wasn’t the difference between 3rd and 4th, given they finished 16.5 points ahead of us in 4th place.

Here is the Leaguers’ draft. They started with 18 slots and $165 to spend. This is the order of their picks, the salaries paid and the slots/money left after the pick:

Carlos Lee 43 - 17/122
Dan Haren 27 - 16/95
Randy Johnson 8 – 15/87
Bronson Arroyo 15 – 14/72
Michael Wuertz 2 – 13/70
Chad Tracy 6 – 12/64
Randy Winn 13 – 11/51
Xavier Nady 20 – 10/31
Scott Hairston 13 – 9/18
Chris Iannetta 4 – 8/14
Scott Hatteberg 2 – 7/12
Damion Easley 1 – 6/11
Chris Duffy 5 – 5/6
Jonathan Sanchez 2 – 4/4
Guillermo Mota 1 – 3/3
Todd Coffey 1 – 2/2
General Kuo 1 – 1/1
Jason Bergmann 1 – Done

All of the mistakes were small. All of the double digit guys did ok or better, as opposed to this run of 4 drafted Capper outfielders: Andrew Jones 24, Austin Kearns 20, Dave Roberts 16, Wily Mo Pena 14. Is there any wonder how the Cappers turned a solid keeper list into total crap?

And there are some nice picks in the middle of the auction. Randy Johnson at 8, Randy Winn at 13 and Xavier Nady at 20 performed quite well. The two Randys are sure keepers for 2009. Chad Tracy and Chris Iannetta at 6 and 4 are probably keepers too, though Iannetta will be a keeper for the Bums.

The end game was of little significance. They got a small trading chip in Sanchez, and Kuo had a wonderful season, but he only had 5 wins and 1 save. Should he turn into the closer in LA this year, in retrospect it will be the top pick of the 2008 auction. The other guys were bums.

I looked over the transactions of the Leaguers. There were 2 excellent pickups. On May 27 when the Leaguers were near the bottom of BABI, they grabbed Cody Ross off the waiver wire. He went 16-61-1-.279 from there. That is a lot of homers on the waiver wire. In July he picked up the frightening and ancient Jamie Moyer, who had 8 wins, an ERA of 3.39 and a ratio of 1.25 for the Leaguers in 11 weeks. He paid $8 for him. Great pickup.

The rest was completely forgettable. Wandy Rodriguez had an ERA of 4.48 and a ratio of 1.48 for the Leaguers. Joe Koshansky, who cost $28, had a total of 14 at bats before going on the DL. The $62 Casey Kotchman was 2-19-0-.246. Nothing else besides Ross and Moyer worked.

So how the hell did he do it? Three words: no big mistakes.

Let’s not let him do it again.

Oh, yeah, the BABI trivia questions:

What are the other two teams that are net ahead during the past 9 years? - Old Rips and Bleacher Bums

What team has finished in the money 8 times? Pickled Pecklers

What 2 teams have finished in the money 6 times? Bleacher Bums and Any 9

What two teams besides the Leaguers have not finished 11th or 12th in that period? Bleacher Bums and Pickled Pecklers

What other 4 teams have finished first, second or third three or more times in that period? Old Rips (1,1,2,3), All Tease Falkuhns (1,2,3), Bleacher Bums (1,2,3) and (surprise) Any 9 (2,3,3).