soriano has been a disappointment

[George_Foreman]

i honestly would have been more than happy with 40/20/.300 (which is quite a bit to ask, i suppose), but considering how ecstatic i was to get him at like 7 or 8 overall (as opposed to number 3 where he went in my other league), i was due for some disappointment.

But i was really looking for some power out of that position, and my later picks of ichiro and crawford refelcted that. i guess 24's not bad and he'll still might get to 30...

but what lofunzo said is true. the guys who have made up for this have been later-round picks like peavy and crawford, and my entire saves category is from WW scrubs, but i've still managed to scrape out 4th best, vying for 3rd. and similarly, my higher picks like teix have been productive to where i was hoping they would be, which helps keep your team on an even keel even when you get some later-round picks that just turn out to stink. (reyes, koskie)

I think a very good study (and one that i would consider doing) would be to test consistency between years for different players. this way, you can see just how useful the previous years are as predictors for future success. naturally, there will be more reliable guys and less reliable over their careers. I'm of the opinion that consistancy should be rated higher than it is. for instance, i'd be willing to take a guy that was guaranteed to put up 2nd-round pick numbers in the first round rather than a guy i thought would put up 1st round numbers. naturally, this player doesn't exist and there is risk inherent in every selection, but if you can minimize risk, you can maximize the return on your team.

hmm. i think some one should give me money to do this.

[GotowarMissAgnes]

I think a very good study (and one that i would consider doing) would be to test consistency between years for different players. this way, you can see just how useful the previous years are as predictors for future success. naturally, there will be more reliable guys and less reliable over their careers. I'm of the opinion that consistancy should be rated higher than it is. for instance, i'd be willing to take a guy that was guaranteed to put up 2nd-round pick numbers in the first round rather than a guy i thought would put up 1st round numbers. naturally, this player doesn't exist and there is risk inherent in every selection, but if you can minimize risk, you can maximize the return on your team.

hmm. i think some one should give me money to do this.

Interesting idea. I was pretty sure somebody would have done something like this, but couldn't find anything on the web. It would be simple enough to find the correlation coefficient for each player and see if there were some differences.

On Soriano, I guess I would say that disappointment is always relative. My 8 keepers included him, but they also included Zito, OCabrera, and Halladay. Sure, I would have liked him to be like Pujols or CZambrano, instead of like Varitek and Foulke (my other keepers who also fell short of last year). But, its performances like the first three that kill your team, not performances like Soriano's.

[grammysboy]

In our league, a player can only be kept one year, so Soriano is going back into the auction pool for next spring since he was kept from last year. I made a brilliant trade of Jeter for Soriano in April at about the time Jeter went in the tank. Soriano was doing fine for me, then another owner offered a first year Kaz Matsui who I thought might be worth keeping for next season. BOY! Did I miss that one.
Looking back now, I would have been better off to never have traded Jeter in the first place. In fact, looking at all the trades I made this year, most were unnecessary and several caused severe damage. I'm going to try to be more patient next year. I'll certainly bid on Soriano for next year's team, but not the $45 salary he was making this season. Perhaps in the $30-$35 range. That will be a little higher than Jeff Kent who sold last spring for $25.