Monday, February 25, 2019

The Graham Kiner Memorial Sweepstakes

In anticipation of Graham Kiner's inevitable retirement/death at the end of this season, and as a small (very small) "thank you" to all the awesome owners in this league, I want to kick off the season with a stupid contest that only I will probably find funny. Any owner that wants to participate can submit a prediction for Graham Kiner's season ending ratings - to keep it somewhat simple we'll do the fielding ratings and hitting ratings - and I will award a free HBD season for both the owner who gets the most "on the nose" ratings guesses, and the owner who has the most accurate "net" score. Tiebreaker for "on the nose" will be better "net" score, and tiebreaker for "net" will be the better "on the nose" score.

I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on rules of the contest or anything, this is just supposed to be fun and to celebrate the weirdest combination of stubbornness and terribleness I've seen in an HBD player. Basically everyone can fill out the prediction sheet ONCE - input your username and team name, and if I get duplicates I'll just discard extras.

"On the Nose"

Any prediction for a given rating that ends up being 100% correct will get a point, any wrong guesses are no points. The owner who gets the most correct wins! So if you get three ratings right on, and every single other rating within one, and another owner gets four ratings right, and every single other rating off by five, the latter owner wins.

"Net"

Every point a guess misses Kiner's final ratings is added to get a final score. Lowest score wins! So missing his range by three = 3 points, missing power by one = 1 point, etc.


Please submit guesses before the end of Spring Training. He is on my Spring Training squad but I'm not planning on playing him, so he shouldn't get hurt - my goal is and has always been to see how low I can get his ratings while still dangling the carrot of playing time. I will play him as much as possible during the regular season, and definitely will not put him on the DL if he gets hurt, because he's old school and just rubs dirt on it. I will grab a screenshot of his ratings at the end of the Minor League regular season, and that will be compared to all of the guesses. Anyone who complains about the fairness of this stupid contest will maybe be automatically disqualified, depending on how grumpy Graham and I are on that given day.

To enter the contest, fill out the survey here.

Saturday, February 2, 2019

S47 Awards Voting

Awhile back in one of my other worlds (I believe it was FYC), I started a segment where I looked at each of the candidates for awards through the lens of Wins Above Replacement to see which guys are the most deserving. Since then, I have been through several permutations of WAR calculations but I have finally settled on a spreadsheet that is both time-efficient and the most accurate that I have found as it is park-adjusted. Using that method, I took a look at this season's candidates to see who should be considered the front-runners:

AL MVP

  • Marty Roosevelt (1B-San Juan), 9.76 WAR
  • Enrique Guzman (RF-San Juan), 7.87 WAR
  • Winston Dransfeldt (1B-San Antonio), 6.84 WAR
  • Dizzy Ellis (LF-Chicago, AL), 5.84 WAR
  • Ryan Jackson (LF-San Juan), 5.92 WAR

NL MVP
  • Alexi Franco (1B-Jacksonville), 7.88 WAR
  • Enny Cayones (LF-Scranton), 7.01 WAR
  • Elian Rojas Jr. (3B-Scranton), 6.01 WAR
  • Odalis Marmol (1B-Tampa Bay), 7.85 WAR
  • Claude Hunter (LF-Tampa Bay), 6.86 WAR
AL Cy Young
  • Brandon Peters (SP-San Juan), 4.64 WAR
  • Kip Ratliff (RP-Hartford), 1.26 WAR
  • Adam O'Neill (SP-San Juan), 4.66 WAR
  • Charley Beckett (SP-Salem), 2.46 WAR
  • David Peron (RP-Madison), 2.14 WAR
NL Cy Young
  • Nigel Maybin (SP-Pittsburgh), 7.42 WAR
  • Geraldo Terrero (SP-Montreal), 5.70 WAR
  • YasielaArias (SP-Pittsburgh), 6.23 WAR
  • Eugenio James (SP-Montreal), 4.63 WAR
  • Everett Stuart (SP-Anaheim), 4.76 WAR
AL Rookie of the Year
  • Enrique Lee (SP-Salem), 3.85 WAR
  • Richard Boyer (RP-Chicago), 0.15 WAR
  • Asdrubal Rojas (3B-Atlanta), 2.81 WAR
  • Dan Sherman (DH-Tacoma), 2.71 WAR
  • Pierce Sowders (LF-Toledo), 2.15 WAR
NL Rookie of the Year
  • Quinton Strickland, (SP-Montgomery), 3.01 WAR
  • Felix Faulk (2B-Tampa Bay), 4.22 WAR
  • JO Pena (SP-Vancouver), 1.45 WAR
  • Vern Statia (SP-Florida), 1.75 WAR
  • Tyson Cowgill (LF-Florida), 4.09 WAR
As far as my own ballot is concerned, I generally try to vote for the WAR leader for each category unless there are extenuating circumstances. This season, the only exception I'm going to make is in the AL Cy Young race where teammates Adam O'Neill and Brandon Peters finished .02 WAR apart. Although it was O'Neill who beat out Peters by a whisker, my vote is going Peters' way because longtime owner bcpbcp7 noted in World Chat that "He's been too close too many times." That means my ballot will be Roosevelt/Franco/Peters/Maybin/Lee/Faulk