Cold Hard Look #9 Glennrtn X

[Schwks]

GlennX is from Long Island and a nice guy. I am rooting for him as we had into final couple of weeks, to do well. He has one team in 6th overall and surging, and one in the bottom 10%. An interesting piece would compare the two teams, but I am sticking to the top team.



Of all the teams that I have looked at, GX has played the waiver wire better then all. His dr4aft had some gems and some misses...certainly not overwhelming.



From the 3 hole:



1. Pujols...ARod and Hanley went 1-2...a dream scenario for GX and pure luck, since no argument could reasonably place either of those two picks ahead of Pujols' guaranteed numbers



2 Lince

3. V Mart

4 Wainwright

5 B Roberts



Wainwright was the best SP in baseball for 4 months and then pulled a Haren. Pujols has been Pujols. Lince VMArt and Roberts did not live up to draft slots. ROberts was probably bad skill by GX since his injuries were known of on draft day.



This first 5 is basically weak in retrospect.



6 D Lee

7 CarGo

8 Kendrick

9 B Anderson

10 Qualls



Another weak 5. DLee, ANderson and Kendrick severely underperformed their draft slot. Qualls was basically a throw away. CarGo, oviously is a season making draft pick, but probably not enough to offset other 4.



11 Tejada

12 Vlad

13 Franklin

14 V Wells

15 B Webb



This 5 gives me my lesson to take away, (more below on this) Webb obviously a wasted pick but Vlad and Wells are huge hits. Franklin considered to be vulnerable, give GX a reliable closer at 13...a nice score



16 Rasmus

17 Maybin

18 Gordon

19 Lindstrom

20 CHapman



Lindstrom at 19 gave GX a mostly solid closer for 3 months or so, making up for Qualls, and allowing him to compete in saves until cavalry came. Rasmus probably gave 16th rd value.



GX did better in rds 21-30 then any other team Ive looked at, possibly explaining his success:



21 Crisp (who he unbelievably held to reap great August-Sept)

22 Myers

23 Buck

24 Jaime Garcia

25 Inge



Unbelievable 21-25...better then most teams 15-20 and probably better then my 11-15.



25-30 had some good picks but they were mostly dropped...Morrow, Dvb Murphy



GX really ht gold on waiver wire. In week 2 he hit on ALex Gonzalez. In week 3 he got E Young, who he later re-picked up. In week 9 he got Neil Walker (of note, someone dropped Nolasco in this league!!!!) He also got Gutierrez, Pennington, Uehara, Brantley and Espinoza.



GX lineup looks like this

Buck/V Mart

Pujo;s

Roberts

Walker

Al Gonzalez

Espinoza

D Lee

Crisp, Brantley, Vlad E Young, Wells



Pitch: Anderson, Chacin, Harang, Gutierrez, Hensley, Myers, Uehara with Wainwr, Garcia Cecil on bench



I dont know that Id start Hensley over Wainwright with 100k on the line. How he knew to bench Garcia, who knows? But hey who is in 6th and who is in 376th?



Here are my two lessons:

1. This year was teh year of the has beens. Value this year came in figuring out not the hot rookies or comers (Kemp, J Upton, Bruce, Rasmus mostly were just ok). This year was finding the reclamation projects...the aging vets ready to revert to form: Hart, Vlad, Huff, V Wells, Rios, B Myers just to name a few. For every CarGo, there are 5 Ugglas, Ortiz types.



What is interesting about vets is that even if they dont explode, they likely will give you adequate numbers in a 15 team league. Instead of looking for a breakout at each pick, maybe it is important to weigh possibility of reversion to form.



#2 GX had a better grip on the player pool then any team, as evidenced by the rocking picks in 21-30.



#3 Other then EY Jr, GX had mostly low bids with no big expenditures, allowing him to continue solid pickups into late Aug and Sept. Most huge bid players do not work out (see Smoak) Additionally there were far more contributors available later in the season.



Great job Glenn and an interesting season to review.

[Sebadiah23]

Since I have one pretty good team and one brutal team, similar to GlenX, I'd be interested to know how the same owner with the same talent "hits" on one draft and "misses" on another.



-Craig K.

[Glenneration X]

Hey Doug, another great article in your series. For some unknown reason, I found the subject matter in this one even more compelling than the others.



It's fascinating to relive your draft and season through the eyes of someone else. It's also really interesting to see the critiques of where you felt I went right and wrong. I agree with a lot that you wrote here, both the good and the bad.



Keep up the great work. All the articles in your series have been a fun read.



Glenn



[ September 14, 2010, 07:27 AM: Message edited by: Glenneration X ]

[Frozen Tundra]

Great insight on Glenn and Lindy. These retrospectives are really nice reads.



I have a reason rooting for GX since not only I am in his league (I am the guy who passed on Pujols and drafted the disaster who became A-Rod), but I am also thrilled to be rooting for a standup guy like Glenn and a suffering fellow Met fan.



Looking at the draft and FA moves, as pointed out Glenn made some excellent choices. But since football is every Sunday and I'm out of baseball contention, I have plenty of time to kill. So I broke out stats from GX's drafted playes and Free agent pickups and compared those to my team's, currently sitting at a miserable 12th place in Glenn's league. While most findings won't surprise anyone, there are some more nuances into how his success was achieved:



Drafted players - offense:

ab r hr rbi sb ba

GX 5423 791 230 822 112 0.284

Me 4897 696 146 631 123 0.267



FA - offense

ab r hr rbi sb ba

GX 1659 221 38 195 34 0.266

Me 1560 220 43 194 17 0.271



Drafted - Pitching

IP K ERA WHIP W SV

GX 1062.9 974 3.16 1.26 72 54

Me 1039.3 963 3.58 1.28 61 57



FA - Pitching

IP K ERA WHIP W SV

GX 303.3 233 4.48 1.39 19 20

Me 309.8 197 4.91 1.54 12 8



So here are what I found:



-GXs FA offensive pickups have been very good, but I found out I have achieved almost the same results with 100 less at bats! For every Alex Gonzalez and Neil Walker, there's a Ryan Raburn and Wilson Betemit.



-Where GX has excelled more is his FA pickups in PITCHING. Not so much in ERA as anyone might have expected, but he has amassed an incredible 19 wins and 20 saves from the likes of Cecil, Uehara, Gutierrez, Gorzo and company.



-I go back to the obvious: Drafting well wins this game. While FA pickups have balanced out, especially on offense, GX ran away by outscoring me and everyone in our league with those numbers from drafted players.



Good luck Glenn