“Perceiving a victory that does not surpass what the masses could know is not the pinnacle of excellence…lifting the autumn hare cannot be considered great strength; seeing the sun and moon cannot be considered acute vision; hearing the sound of thunder cannot be considered having sensitive ears.”–Sun Tzu
The genesis of this post is my recent […]

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In the excellent, thought-provoking book Mind Game, the authors debunk one of the classic sporting fallacies, namely that a fight or brawl can motivate a team to play better in the games following the brawl. In a relatively exhaustive analysis of the brawls between the Yankees and the Red Sox, they show that there is […]

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On Sat morning, I was watching the Mets fast forward from the previous night’s game against the Marlins. The following situation arose:
Top of the 9th inning, Mets on first (LoDuca) and Third (Carlos Gomez), none out. Score tied 1-1, Renyel Pinto pitching to Shawn Green. Announcers Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez go practically ballistic on […]

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I own Felix Hernandez and continue to receive trade inquiries about him. There is no denying that he has considerable injury risk. The pitch goes something like this: “His ERA is not likely to be below three since it was 4.50 last year, and anything below three is tough in the AL anyway; his Win-Loss […]

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It’s taken me a few days to get my s&it together and make my first post, and to start with a curse word certainly doesn’t bode well for my longevity. When Pat asked me to be a “contributor” to this blog, I wondered aloud, “what will I write about?” He said, “anything”. So, I said […]

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Why is it that a player with a good eye, i.e. a lot of walks, has a higher batting average than one who doesn’t?? Why do players that make contact generally have higher batting averages than those that don’t??
That the above two propositions are true should be evident; and not just by common sense. Ron […]

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Reading books and articles across the internet on all manner of topics, it is clear that there are many “experts.” At least, that is what they represent themselves to be. Some legitimately are experts (Ron Shandler, the folks at Baseball Prospectus for example–and there are others whose exclusions here are not important) and some aren’t. […]

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“If one who finds the majority of factors are in his favor will be victorious, and one who finds few factors in his favor will be defeated, what of one who finds no factors in his favor?”
Those of us that play poker know this principle well, and an example will suffice. You have pocket Aces, […]

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There was an interesting debate on the Fantasy 411 show on mlb.com. The discussion was about a proposed fantasy trade in a 12 team mixed league of J.J. Hardy and Carlos Guillen; clearly a “sell high” trade. One of the hosts discussed the trade as follows, and I am summarizing: most […]

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“Whoever occupies the battlefield first will be at ease, whoever occupies the battlefield afterward and must race to the conflict will be fatigued.”–Sun Tzu
One key to any game, be it fantasy or otherwise, is knowing when you need to make your strategic decisions. You do not want to be forced to make […]

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“The General who makes many calculations is destined to win”–Sun Tzu
“Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win.”–Bobby Knight
“What are you prepared to do?”–Sean Connery in “The Untouchables.”
What does it take to win against tougher opponents?? It is one thing to say “preparation.” This is the […]

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Welcome all. Anyone who is a fantasy/roto baseball player is no doubt familiar with many sites and blogs. Some of these are for projections, some are oriented to “real” baseball, some are team by team blogs. But what we are about here is the overall general strategic principles of fantasy baseball and […]

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