Power Rankings: Week 1

The power rankings I use here are a simple application of the rotisserie scoring rules used by many leagues.  The team ranked first in a scoring category receives 10 points, the second-place team gets nine points, and so forth down to last place, which gets a single point.  Ties split the points between them.  I import the weekly stats into a spreadsheet which kicks out a bunch of numbers and graphs.  Here are the numbers for week 1, along with the hitting/pitching breakdown after each total score.

Power Rankings

1. Coney Island Cyclones 82.0 (42.0/40.0)
2. Kennewick Knights 67.5 (30.5/37.0)
3. Springfield Isotopes 62.0 (35.5/26.5)
4. Mexican Hat Holey Sox 61.0 (26.0/35.0)
5. Monterey Sea Otters 55.5 (30.0/25.5)
6. Hobbiton Halflings 53.0 (11.5/41.5)
7. Kansas City League Minimums 46.0 (28.0/18.0)
8. Hood River Mountain Goats 45.5 (19.0/26.5)
9. Utah Liquor Laws 45.0 (28.5/16.5)
10. Chicago Comets 32.5 (24.0/8.5)

Players of the Week: Week 1

Player of the Week

Evan Longoria

Evan Longoria (Coney Island) 13-27 with 5 HR, 5 runs, 10 RBI, 1 stolen base, and 32 total bases.  .481/.481/1.185

Pitcher of the Week

Josh Johnson

Josh Johnson (Coney Island) 2-0 in two starts, 15.7 IP, 15 strikeouts, 0.57 ERA, 0.83 WHIP

Minor Leaguers: Where Are They?

Want to know where the prospects on your minor league roster are playing this year so you can keep an eye on them?

Hood River Mountain Goats
OF Colby Rasmus: St. Louis (NL)
P Tommy Hanson: Gwinnett (AAA)
SS Gordon Beckham: Birmingham (AA)
SS Brent Lillibridge: Chicago (AL)
1B Logan Morrison: Jacksonville (AA)

Mexican Hat Holey Sox
P Wade Davis: Durham (AAA)
P Rick Porcello: Detroit (AL)
1B Lars Anderson: Portland (AA)
P Michael Bowden: Pawtucket (AAA)
3B Josh Vitters: Peoria (Low-A)

Kansas City League Minimums
1B Micah Hoffpauir: Chicago (NL)
1B Kyle Blanks: Portland (AAA)
P Will Inman: San Antonio (AA)
P Aaron Poreda: Birmingham (AA)
P James McDonald: Los Angeles (NL)

Monterey Sea Otters
OF Steve Pearce: Indianapolis (AAA)
OF Jordan Schafer: Atlanta (NL)
1B Angel Villalona: San Jose (High-A)
P Neftali Feliz: Oklahoma City (AAA)
P Fautino de los Santos: Unknown [Stockton (AA) last year]

Utah Liquor Laws
P Nick Adenhart: Anaheim (AL) [Deceased April 9, 2009]
C Buster Posey: San Jose (High-A)
P Ross Detwiler: Harrisburg (AA)
OF Andrew McCutchen: Indianapolis (AAA)
P Brian Matusz: Frederick (High-A)

Kennewick Knights
OF Aaron Hicks: Extended spring training [Beloit (Low-A) in May]
C Wilson Ramos: New Britain (AA)
OF Ben Revere: Fort Meyers (High-A)
P Kevin Mulvey: Rochester (AAA)
P Brian Duensing: Minnesota (AL)

Coney Island Cyclones
3B Pedro Alvarez: Lynchburg (High-A)
P Madison Bumgarner: San Jose (High-A)
OF Dexter Fowler: Colorado (NL)
P Chris Tillman: Norfolk (AAA)
OF Mike Stanton: Jupiter (High-A)

Hobbiton Halflings
SS Reid Brignac: Durham (AAA)
OF Desmond Jennings: Montgomery (AA)
3B Mike Moustakas: Wilmington (High-A)
OF Jason Heyward: Myrtle Beach (High-A)
OF Austin Jackson: Scranton (AAA)

Springfield Isotopes
P Jeff Samardzija: Iowa (AAA)
C Max Ramirez: Oklahoma City (AAA)
2B Matt Antonelli: Unknown [San Diego (NL) last year]
P Jarrod Parker: Visalia (High-A)
P Chris Perez: Memphis (AAA)

Chicago Comets
P Steven Strasburg: San Diego State University (NCAA)
OF Matt LaPorta: Columbus (AAA)
P Michael Ynoa: Extended spring training
P Trevor Cahill: Oakland (AL)
1B Justin Smoak: Frisco (AA)

Unknown players are likely to be in extended spring training, but their placement could not be confirmed at this time.

2009 Draft Follow-up

All players are entered into team rosters and contract status is set as well.  Please look over your players (especially the minors, which I entered by hand) and make sure they are all there.  Please double-check the contract status as well because those draft rounds will affect 2010 keeper rounds.

As discussed here last month, the one rule change this year is free agents/waivers.  All players not on a Fungo League roster are on waivers.  To pick up a free agent, you must make a waiver claim.  Claims are processed each night in reverse standings order (last place team gets priority).  You are limited to one claim per day.

Please contact me with any questions or comments.  Good luck!

Draft History: 2009

Fungo League Draft 2009

Chad hosted the draft for the second year in a row.  Myke and Julie arrived first, followed by Mary and me.  Dusty showed up a bit later after calling to find out just where it was taking place.  Ryan, Travis, and Matthew participated online, and John was at Benjamin’s baseball game.

The menu theme was BYOCM (bring your own cylindrical meat) so we had brats and hot dogs and whatever veggie thing Dusty brought.  Mary’s potato salad was delicious, as was Myke’s guacamole.  The featured drink, of course, was the champions’ Yoo-Hoo toast.

2007 champion Dusty presents 2008 champion Ben with his trophy and Yoo-Hoo.

For the first time, we used the online draft room to conduct the draft.  Having never done it before, we set the time limit per pick to 60 seconds, figuring that 350 picks would take about 350 minutes, or just under six hours.  Instead, because keeper and autopilot picks happened instantaneously, we ran the entire draft in 1:45, which many felt was a bit too fast.  We may go to 90 or even 120 seconds for 2010, but I think most owners agreed that the draft room was the way to go, even if it did have some drawbacks (like the lack of walks in the stat lists).

I tried liveblogging the draft at Twitter, but because it went so quickly, I didn’t have enough time to make as many tweets as I had hoped.

As the commish, I loved it because I didn’t have to spend hours afterwards putting all of the players onto the team rosters by hand.  We ran the minor league draft in the chat window, and it went pretty smoothly, especially since two teams (Monterey and Hobbiton) had no minor league picks and many others went off the “give me the best guy on the BP prospect list” strategy.  CBS Sports has done a much better job anticipating minor leaguers, as only one of our draft picks was not in their system–my pick of San Diego State University pitcher Stephen Strasburg, expected to be the top overall pick in the 2009 June MLB draft.

We had strawberry shortcake for dessert when it was over, helped Chad clean up, and spent the time we saved by doing the draft online playing games at Myke and Julie’s.

I kept it down. My secret? Don't eat a bag of peanut M&Ms first.

2009 Draft Grids

Here are a couple of draft grids with the (hopefully) final keepers.

Final 2009 Keeper Grid

2009 Positional Keeper Grid

The final grid above is the official list of who is on which roster, but it differs from what is entered into the CBS Sports website in three places.  I made a few mistakes processing keepers, so please make a note of these players:

4th Round: Brian McCann (C) Mexican Hat Holey Sox
10th Round: Raul Ibanez (OF) Mexican Hat Holey Sox
38th Round:  Ben Revere (OF) Kennewick Knights

These three players are NOT entered into the draft system as pre-made picks, although they should have been.  Sorry.  Their owners will have to make those picks at the appropriate spots in the draft.  If anyone attempts to draft them in any other spot, I will invalidate that pick after the draft, which means in effect that the pick will be forfeited.

In other words, please cross these three names off your draft list, in addition to all of the other keepers.  If you go off the grids above you should be okay (at least until someone finds a mistake in one of them).