It's almost Schaefer time again

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Despite the waning interest as the season progressed last year, and because I've systemized the tallying so that it's so easy for me to do, we'll soon commence our third year of Schaefer Mets Player of the Year voting.

David Wright is our two-time champion, with a well-deserved win in 2005 and a very surprising win in 2006. Will he be able to get three in a row? We begin to find out on April 1.

The rules will be classic Schaefer, just as Ralph, Lindsey, and Bob used to do it:

Maximum of 10 points per game.
Maximum of 6 points for any one player.
No minimum.

We'll continue to allow fractions, even though I'm pretty sure that Lindsey Nelson never awarded anybody a 1.53.

Any zero votes will be tossed, as they would drag down the totals of those who did vote. If you think there was a game where everybody sucked, just don't vote.

Don't count on me to pester anybody to revise their votes. Anyone who votes more than 6 points for a player will have their vote tossed. Anyone who goes over 10 total points will be pro-rated down. Once the votes are tallied the decision is final.

Any CPF member can open the voting threads; it doesn't have to be me. If I've gone to bed, or am on vacation, please feel free to open the voting yourself. (If any duplicates are created please lock and delete.)

Just like last year, I'll announce when the voting is closed. This will typically be two or three days after the game, sometimes longer if the span includes a weekend. I'll post the official totals in the voting thread and then move the thread to the POTG forum. Periodically I'll post the season-to-date and month-to-date totals, and we'll have six Schaefer Players of the Month.

The best way to vote is to keep it simple: enter the player's last name followed by his point total. No nicknames, please, and try to avoid misspellings. (With Mientkiewicz gone, it should be less of a problem than a couple of years ago.) If you can also leave out colons or dashes and the like, that would be appreciated. Please put comments on a separate line from the votes.

GOOD Martinez 5 LoDuca 2 Wagner 1.5 Beltran .75 Delgado .75 That double by Lo Duca turned the game around! NOT SO GOOD Pedro: 5 Lo Duca: 2 His double turned the game around! Nightcrawler 1.5 Carlos .75 Degado .75

Voting starts in a little more than two weeks. Be there!

P.S.: Since Anderson Hernandez is still in the organization, we'll continue to vote for Orlando Hernandez as OHernandez. (No dot after the O, please!)

Last year's Schaefer kick-off thread

Link to database page with historical Schaefer voting results

[Guest holychicken]

This reminds me too much of taking the SATs.

I kept expecting you to say "and remember your number two pencil."

[nymr83]

] and try to avoid misspellings. (With Mientkiewicz gone, it should be less of a problem than a couple of years ago.)

how easily you forget Scott Schoeneweis!

[metirish]

Who is Nightcrawler again?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

="Nymr83"] ] and try to avoid misspellings. (With Mientkiewicz gone, it should be less of a problem than a couple of years ago.) how easily you forget Scott Schoeneweis!

Holy crap, I did forget him.

[Gwreck]

Can I recommend that the standard voting period be one week after the game ends? I think it could help increase participation.

Aside from slightly longer waits to know who the "player of the month" was, I sense this would be feasible, so long as it was the policy from the beginning of the year on.

[soupcan]

Actually its the length of time allowed to vote that sort of soured me on the SPotG.

If you make it so you have 24 hours after the game to get your vote in perhaps peeps will feel more of a sense of urgency to get it done.

This would also have the added benefit of not clogging up whatever forum the voting threads are in.

Just one man's opinion.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I typically would allow two business days.

So on Wednesday mornings I'd close games played from Thursday to Sunday. On Thursday morning I'd close Monday's games, and on Friday morning I'd close Tuesday's games. Any games played on Wednesday would be closed over the following weekend.

I guess since Gwreck is saying that's not enough time, and soupcan is saying it's too much time, it might mean I struck the proper balance.

[seawolf17]

Nightcrawler was Zvon's (Valadius's?) nickname for Billy Wagner. It caught on like wildfire, as you can tell, and as a result, Valadius (Zvon?) was ridiculed so badly that he never jumped in the Pool ever again.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It was Valadius.

Zvon (not the passionate nicknamer Valadius is) says he'll be back on opening day.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Lotsa folks gone missing lately. We need a new-member recruitment drive

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I don't know where Zvon has been, but wherever he is, I'll bet he's been rolling on the floor laughing his ass off.

Here's the thread that may have caused Valadius to leave for a while, although he did eventually come back, and then leave yet again:

http://www.getalifealready.com/cpf/archives/f1_t2382.shtml

[soupcan]

And Johnny, he wants to get new members
Leaving Zvon far behind
Take a balloon and go sailing
While Zvon, Zvon slowly dies

[metirish]

] I have been known as someone who quite frequently comes up with nicknames. Sometimes they may appear obvious. Others might leave some people scratching their heads. Well there is a method to my madness, and I intend to demonstrate that here. For example, let's take one nickname from last year, "Popsicle", which I bestowed upon Gerald Williams. Step 1: I started with the established nickname of "Ice". I don't know where it originally came from, but thanks go out to whoever came up with that. Step 2: I decide that this nickname is unsatisfactory. So I decide to branch off from "Ice" by incorporating something about Gerald Williams. In this case, I chose his age. He's pretty old for a ballplayer. So that gave me the idea for "Pops". Step 3: I incorporate "Pops" with "Ice". This leads to his new nickname of "Popsicle". Let's recap: Step 1: Ice Step 2: Ice + (Something about his age) Step 3: Icicle + Pops = Popsicle

brilliant....

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

In Ireland, does brilliant mean strangely disturbing?

[metirish]

="Yancy Street Gang"]In Ireland, does brilliant mean strangely disturbing?

one might have to be strangely disturbed to come up with such a formula .

[stevejrogers]

I'm still not sure who got the worse of it, Val from Bret or Bret from everyone rushing to Val's defense, despite the fact that Bret did have some bit of a point.

BTW Yance, sure you don't want me to set up another poll for this one? =

[Guest KC]

How do you guys remember this stuff? I figured Val was off being a college
dude with no time for goofin' off on a baseball forum during the winter.

[stevejrogers]

KC wrote: How do you guys remember this stuff? I figured Val was off being a college dude with no time for goofin' off on a baseball forum during the winter.

Thats probably the case with his latest absence, but he did admit in his return post (titled "I'm BAAAAAACK" which probably means he learned nothing from what Bret had to say) that Bret's lashing of him was part of what drove him away from posting last spring/summer. Kind of easy also to put together because that was just about the last post he made before returning.

[stevejrogers]

soupcan wrote: Actually its the length of time allowed to vote that sort of soured me on the SPotG. If you make it so you have 24 hours after the game to get your vote in perhaps peeps will feel more of a sense of urgency to get it done. This would also have the added benefit of not clogging up whatever forum the voting threads are in. Just one man's opinion.

Maybe (this could go in the BTTA folder actually) we should create a seperate "Game Threads" folder for the IGT, SPotG, Beer PotG and whatever threads would tie into a Game thread?

[Guest GYC]

I lost interest last year after my hard drive crashed and I lost my entire spreadsheet that had all of my votes and organized statistics. Lame, yes. Plus, I couldn't get back on the board for almost a month. Hopefully that won't happen this year.

[metsmarathon]

something similar happened to me. my uber file got corrupted, and while it kept all of the formulae, it lost the formatting, and became quite a bear.

i had a hard time fixing it.

this year, i've got an even more immense and cumbersome spreadsheet going, and have been practicing using it in the spring training games. if i had both the free time and commensurate lack of life, i'd use it to go back a rescore all of last year to see how well it holds up... but i'm not quite that hardcore.

i've got just about everything automated in it, too, once i input the game performances. it automatically assigns up to ten points to the six most deserving players. all it doesn't do is correct if/when a player pulls in more than 6 points (hard to implement in excel, i think), and automatically tally the scores (unwieldy, but doable). i've even got it set up to compare itself to last year's scoring methodology. (yes, i'm a loser, and a damned geeky one at that!)

i plan on issuing a special commendation to the top springtime performer.

[Frayed Knot]

Or you could ... oh I dunno, maybe watch the game and award points based on your observations.

[metsmarathon]

phooey!

besides, i can now award bonus points for good things, and take away points for bad things players do that aren't necessarily captured in the stats.

hey, i should add in a comment line for future use!

this way i can track how players negatively affect games, and how small contributions may add up over the course of a season.

besides, i'm a sucker for half-baked quantitative metrics where qualitative observations may suffice.

[metsmarathon]

hmm. the pi day game should be a good opportunity for me to evaluate my scoring.

the only real difference between maine and pelfrey is that maine actually pitched better (more strikeouts, fewer hits, no hbp), but because he was awarded the loss, he gets hurt in my methodology, perhaps moreso than he deserves. so i'm thinking that maybe i need to tone down the loss impact...
maine also started while pelfrey releived. and in a normal non-spring game, i would consider that pelfrey's job was harder, therefore deserving of more points, but i've pulled out my "starter correction factors" for the spring.

that correction factor is essentially awarding 3 negative points for starting a game, but 5 positive points for then achieving a quality start. a QS is worth about a net of 2 points to a starter.
note: these are marathon points, not schaeffer points.

marathon points become schaeffer points through a distillation process that selects the 6 highest marathoners for game and normalizes their score to a maximum of ten points. marathon points are more of an absolute measure, while schaeffer points are relativistic in nature.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I typically would allow two business days. So on Wednesday mornings I'd close games played from Thursday to Sunday. On Thursday morning I'd close Monday's games, and on Friday morning I'd close Tuesday's games. Any games played on Wednesday would be closed over the following weekend. I guess since Gwreck is saying that's not enough time, and soupcan is saying it's too much time, it might mean I struck the proper balance.

Anybody else have an opinion on this?

Should more or less time be allowed for voting on each game? Or would Goldilocks consider this policy to be "just right"?

[Frayed Knot]

It's fine.
If someone misses out because they weren't around for 3 or 4 days (at which point they'd forget the details of the game anyway) or because their "system" is having trouble figuring out how the in-game Range Factor for each position matches up with the square root of 'OBA/Runners moved up', well then they don't get a vote in that game.

[metsmarathon]

ooh, square roots... hmm...

2 days works for me.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I want it noted that, when we forsook my much-hated standard having all ballots worth 10 points, we ended up with the wrong guy last year.

The wrong guy.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

That is worth noting.

Let's see what happens this year.