Random facts from the shakedown
Like last year, I’m working on using projections and Diamond Mind to take a look at the upcoming season (check it out, this year’s projections in DMB season disk form now available). This exercise is generally met with delight or mockery, but as the kids say, what evahhhhhhh.
Anyway, random thoughts: cutting the hitters down turns out to be a tough exercise when you get to the end. Morse or Wlad? If you play Griffey in the field, who ends up dropping off the 25-man? Do you play Clement at DH then, and carry Burke or Rob Johnson? Do you want to field an anti-RHP lineup that leaves no lefties on the bench at all? And bullpen construction! How unbalanced a bullpen do you want?
Also, in this projection disk it makes sense to flip Gutierrez and Chavez when they’re both playing because it gets you
LF: Gutierrez’s “Very Good” defense (he’s rated “average” in center)
CF: Chavez’s “Excellent” defense (he’s rated “excellent” at all three positions)
RF: Ichiro’s “Very Good” defense
And the rotation I used is Felix-Bedard-Morrow-Washburn-Silva, which makes me want to grind my teeth, frankly, but what are you going to do? Well, actually… I’m going to start pitching RRS over Silva.
Anyway, the rosters are all messed up for other teams, the lineups don’t make sense, and I’ll probably manage to talk myself into a totally different 25-man in the next hour.
The one big thing, though — the run prevention just rocks (even without the playing-to-the-sim OF switch). I’ve run a couple of seasons now and the M’s have been AL-best every time. Maybe that’s just random noise as I shake it out, but I doubt it.
More soon.
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13 Responses to “Random facts from the shakedown”
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Derek, are you using ZIPS right now with your own lineups? I noticed that there aren’t more than a couple lineups in Dan’s recent update. I’ve set a couple lineups/rotations already, but good grief. I’m not even sure what to do with Oakland’s rotation at this point.
Yeah, if you look at the comment thread I turned in my M’s lineup for public consumption. It’s tedious.
Oh, bitchin’.
Wait, what are .xtr and .xtm extensions?
Kewl. The two questions this raises for me are “The Griffey Factor” (Our run prevention isn’t necessarily going to rock if he is playing the field.) and run production (The 2002 and 2003 teams had a lot of close, low-scoring games, not all of which they won.)
Don’t unzip it — just go into DMB and transfer -> import statistics and point it at the file
Suweeet. Thanks much, Derek. Figured it out.
In other news, [deleted, off-topic]
Cause for excitement! Yay!
[off-topic]
I know we’ve gotten better defensivly (thank you Z) but first in the AL?
Just out of curiousity, how did the Rays average out? I would have thought they’d be at the top of the heap. At least for the sake of projections.
It’s totally meaningless right now, all the rosters are undone, etc. I’ve just been doing some Mariner stuff to try and see if I can get reasonable playing time outcomes.
Thanks for these DMZ! It’s always nice to get an early view. You mentioned you were doing it to get an idea of playing times. Did those shake down how you expected/differently? Just curious what you were kind of expecting vs. how they came out. Thanks!
Now about Branyan…..(just kidding, just kidding). 🙂
One more question: If we maximized our OF defense by switching Chavez to center with Gutierrez in left, do you think that will lead to an increase in playing time for Chavez or simply a few different looking outfield options? Thanks again for these!
It’s not a matter of maximizing defense, really, it’s just a comment on the defensive rating quirk. And on playing time: I’m trying to figure out how to set up a roster that plays through the season. Once you set your ~25m and auto-play through the end, you’re kind of stuck, so if Carlos Silva blows out his knee, you want the team to be able to survive but if you carry 28 players all year, your bullpen’s super-deep… you see where I’m going with this.