213 Miles From Shea

In the Nationals attempt to have the laregest amount of people ever try to get onto a mediocre team, they are now interested in Ronnie Belliard, as reported by mlbtraderumors.com. He would be back up to Felipe Lopez and Zimmerman, who already has Batista as a back up as well

I really dont like Belliard, he gets on my nerves

Clemens says hes 80% sure of retiring (ESPN)

That statement has no effect on me anymore after all the times he has “retired”

You know statement Glavine made yesterday, as reported on every other blog, is big news when it is reported in the Baltimore Sun as well.

So on the ESPNEWS, the fantasy 3:50 focus was on hidden gems, really more on people who would be great other places but because of the talent on their teams, they might not get their chance. They are good hitters and have other talents as well, some I'll go into detail about, others I'll just list.

Aybar (Angels SS)

Hariston (Dbacks 2B and OF)

Brooks Conrad

Shin Soo Choo

Ryan Theriot

Hinske (Red Sox)

Marcas Thames

Chris Shelton – The analyst on ESPN believes that a change of senary will be the best move to see the amazing Shelton from April Last year.

Now to the Dbacks, they have two players for 3B. Their amazing BJ Upton, might be out of luck with Iwamura coming to America. BJ's only hope is Iwamura goes to second base, or he can find another place to be at offensivly. This is gonna play out in an interesting way.

In other news:

Bonds signed his one year deal…big whup

Kerry Wood, has done it again folks. ESPN this morning reports that he injured his toe getting out of a hot tub.

You cant depend on anything, but you can depend on Kerry Wood gettting injured some how.

Keith Folke, was working out earlier with the Indians, felt some pain in his shoulder (or arm) and after 10 years, he has retired. Also reported on ESPN

Interesting Barry Zito news, he came to camp yesterday with a new “old school” pitching style. His new pitching coach thinks its not as effective and that its more dangerous to his health, should be easier to get injured now. Also from ESPN.

Finally, also reported on ESPN, Willy Mo Pena and the Red Sox just barely avoided their arbritation meeting today by agreeing to a one year deal.

Are a big risk, according to Will Carol

He was interviewed at 3:50 today talking about risky players. He said that all the starters in the Angel outfield, including Vlad, are big injury risks. They all are wearing down. He says Vlad's power is going down. Gary Matthey Jr, we all know, had a career year last year, and is an unlikly repeat.

Another risky player is the now Royal, Gil Meche. Besides the fact that he got paid way more than what he is worth, he probably wont make it the full season. He used Mike Hampton as an anolgy to describe how much of a risk he is.

Felix Hernandez, he says is a risk cause of the way he finishes pitches, its dangerous.

I like that kid, and i really hope he has a good year.

He also thinks that Paplepon will become less of a risk with moving to the rotation because he was in the rotation for his whole life and the schedueled rest that he will now get will do him good.

In other news, Bill Hall, Brewers shortstop (or second baseman i forget) is not anymore. He will now play center field for the brew crew/

Well this is going to be a very National themed entry. First off, they now have Dmitri Young and Tony Batista. When asked about these signings, their reaction was basically this, “It gives us depth at the position of first base and third base”

I guess I follow that statement, until it was followed with this:

It also gives us trade bait for prospects

… I'm pretty confident that the nationals will get very little in terms of prospects for these two…no offense to them

Our boy on the Nationals, Manny Acta, was interviewed about starting his dream job. His main concern in the spring is keeping everyone moving. They have 4 rotations spots with 12 serious people starting out. More surprising is on top of the 40 man roster, they have a total 71 people so far, now up 73 with the additional signings above, of people trying to get on that 40 man roster

The last four games of spring training, the Nats play the O's, four days straight…I have a good feeling that for the Orioles it will be like playing a different team everyday just about.

Keeping with this National Team, its time for fantasy comparison. Please note that there probably have already been changes to this starting list, and there will be more coming later…so dont take this one too seriously.

Felipe Lopez: 7.1 (Valtine 7.7)

Nick Johnson: 8.5 (Delgado 9.0)

Ryan Zimmeran: 9.2 (Wright 9.2)

Austin Kearns: 7.0 (Green 7.0)

Brian Schneider: 7.5 (LoDuca 8.3)

Kory Casto: 6.4 (Alou 7.7)

Cristian Guzman: 5.8 (Reyes 9.6)

Nook Logan: 6.6 (Beltran 9.2)

Nationals: 58.1

Mets: 67.7

So first time in one of these, we see a big difference, which shouldnt be a surprise…not that these things mean anything. Not to mention, the Nationals also expect church to be a factor this time around, but was not listed in the Sporting News Preview, which is where these numbers were pulled, still Florida, Baltimore and the other New York to go…and I'll do some more stat analysis.

The O's reported yesterday. One more days to till the Mets…Welcome Back Baseball…although, thru this offseason like always… u never really left

So I know I said that the next stats would be DWright hits vs HR's, but i did some pitching analysis, so ill do that today. Also, I will get to that other stuff I promised soon. First some roundup.

Mariano is not happy with the way the Yanks are handleing his contract extension. He wants more respect.

ESPN reports that Papelbon has a new trick up his sleeve, a new pitch. When i find out, ill update.

Now to keep with this theme of pitching, I wanted to find the probability of a pitcher having 3 strikeouts in an inning.

Now most of you already know what K/9 is, (Strikeouts per nine innings), for this exercises, I chose Wagner cause he has the highest on the Mets, 11.70.

Now if you take the K/9 and divide by 27 and you get the KAVG, for Wagner this would be .433

So first, the probability in one inning that Wagner gets at least one K

1-Binomcdf(3,.433,0) = .818

Now these are the exact probilities of 0,1,2,3 K's per inning

Binompdf(3,.433,0) = .182

Binompdf(3,.433,1) = .418

Binompdf(3,.433,2) = .319

Binompdf(3,.433,3) = .081

Another interesting take on this…so close to pitchers and catchers

First off, ESPN.com, is really bad in terms of load times…its frustrating anyway

Time Warner does not own the Braves anymore, in fact now Liberty Media Corp does. Within the deal, a lot of money goes to Liberty from Time Warner, and then there are the stock exchange involved as well which is estimated around 1.27 billion

Not approved yet by the MLB

also Im still working on those new DWright Stat analysis

So as you all have probably heard, Benson out for the year. Now, being an Oriole fan (second to the Mets, the Mets are still #1 in my heart) i am very depressed about this news, Benson was crucial for the team this year for even having a longshot at 3rd place. So here is the sorry conclusion, the orioles for one, have to realy more on jaret wright to perform well and at the same time have to find someone. That someone might just be Trax, which in that case, Im not looking foward to go to those games…they'll take forever.

Now about M Cabera, as reported on mlbtraderumors.com, the Marlins are mad at Caberera for not being at their fanfest. Miguel is mad about the arbritation case going on between them…There is more to this story basically saying that the Marlins have no respect to or for their players.

Now on for some stats analysis. So in previous posts I walked over the probability for DWright to get a certain number of hits in a ball game and the probability of his first hig coming in a certain number of AB's. So now I'm going to apply those same processes for finding out the probability for DWright and Beltran and hitting HR's in a game.

So lets Look at Beltran. Last year was a record year for him. In 510 AB, he hit 41 HR

That means his HRAVG would be .080 (Homerun Average)

Now the probability of Beltran hitting exactly one HR in a game (with 5 AB) is:

Binompdf(5,.080,5) = .287 or 28.7% chance

Here is the probability of Beltran breaking the single game HR record, which would be launching 5 HR

Binompdf(5,.080,5) = .00000328 or a .000328% chance

Now, to show how successful Beltran was last year, lets look at his career stats

In 4559 AB, he has hit 203 HR making his HRAVG .045

Now using these numbers, we can determine the probability for Beltran based on lifetime stats, to hit 1 OR more Homeruns per game based on a 5 AB game.

1 – Binomcdf(5,.045,0) = .207 or 20.7%

So out of 162 games, in 20.7%, or about 34 games, Beltran will hit 1 or more homeruns per game, this stat would be a lot higher using his current latest, last season numbers.

Later I will do a similar analysis for DWright, but in that analysis, I will compare hit probabilities to HR probabilities, to put the numbers in perspective and easier to understand…and yeah im gonna do those other things I said i would

Lets start off with the Roundoff:

Joe Mauer and the Twins, according to ESPN, reached a 4 year/33mil ext today. Mauer previously rejected adeal from them when he wanted to go about 1.2 mil more, they avoid arbritation with this move.

Some Corrections: (for the last post)

Thanks for pointed out LaRoche was traded, i knew that, i really did, just slipped my mind.

And yes, i do realize i misspelled loopers first name, but he blew a lot of wins for Pedro, i guess ill just misspell his first name for that.

This next statistical trick is for all you betters out there. There is a way to tell the chance of a batters first hit (with regard to whether it comes in his first at bat, second, and so forth). This stat is called geometretic probability and also can be calculated via a TI-83. Once again we are going to use our golden boy David Wright. The last number in the parethesis represents the AB that he will get his first hit. Therefore, if he gets his first hit in his third AB, that means he was 1-3 going 0-2 for his first two.

Geometpdf(.311,1): .311

Geometpdf(.311,2): ..214

Geometpdf(.311,3): .148

Geometpdf(.311,4): .103

Geometpdf(.311,5): .070

Now the better way to use this stat is the Geometeric Probabilty Cummiltive. What that means is the number that is crunched out is the probabilty that his first hit will come within two AB, three AB, and so forth. In other words, these probabilities represent that lets say by the 7th inning he has had 3 ABs, the number would represent the probability that he has had his first already.

Geometcdf(.311,1): .311

Geometcdf(.311,2): .525

Geometcdf(.311,3): .673

Geometcdf(.311,4): .775

Geometcdf(.311,5): .845

Once again these stats mean what u make of them, i like them cause they are just fun to make. Coming up i still have the fantasy line up review of the Mets Vs the Marlins, Nationals, Yankees and Orioles, and any other requested teams. Im also gonna do a review of a great website for photos and maybe a card box review of a new product that deserves some recognition.

Spring Training is around the corner. With Spring Training comes the answers to who will play that postion or who will round off the rotation. The real fighting for starting jobs happens.

We all know the Mets will have a fair share of this, with Rotation spots 3-5 free for starting pitchers, but today i read something MLB.com that nearly floored me about the possible 5-hole for the St. Louis Cardinals…Brandon Looper will be competing for that spot

Granted, the second half of the season, he did much better than the first half (06), but still, Looper? Thats insane…well i hope we eventually get to play him if he is starting, maybe we can watch that stupid grin he makes for 4 innings instead of 1 now.

In other news, ESPN reports, that Williams is not happy about going to Spring Training on a Minor League Contract, and probably wont do it

Good for him, that is straight up ridiculous and just wrong to do that to Bernie.

And Now, as promised, the Braves Starting Line-Up VS the Mets (According to Sportining News)

Martin Prado: 6.7 (Valtine 7.7)

Edgar Eenteria: 8.6 (Jose Reyes 9.6)

Chipper Jones: 8.5 (David Wright 9.2)

Andruw Jones: 9.6 (Beltran 9.2)

Jeff Francoeur: 8.8 (Green 7.0)

Brian McCann: 9.4 (LoDuca 8.3)

Adam LaRoche: 8.7 (Delgado 9.0)

Mat Diaz: 6.4 (Alou 7.7)

Braves Total: 66.7

Mets Total: 67.7

Interesting. This is a case where i think fantasy points will not tell the true difference in an offensive line up. The Phillies were around 65, and i think they are way more dangerous than the braves…I thimk the next time i do this, im also gonna average out the lineup, This will probably done for the remaining teams in the east, the yankees and against the orioles (cause deep down inside, a little part of me still loves thoses black and orange birds)