Benjamin Grimm

i'd like to lift the 6 point cap entirely, but if thats too extreme how bout a 6 point cap on hitters and no cap on pitchers OR a cap on starters equal to the number of innings they pitched, so a guy who goes 9 can get 9, a guy who goes 8 can get 8. I think that's worth thinking about. But remember, David Wright, our 2005 winner, got about 140 points in 160 games. That's .875 points per game. In your example, over 5 games he'd have 4.375 points. The hitter who gets 10 points in 5 games is rare. I think allowing a pitcher to get 10 points in a game would tilt things too far in the other direction. In a game where Pedro throws a 1-0 shutout and the Mets gather four singles, the voting might go something like this: Martinez 6 Wright 1 Floyd 1 Beltran 1 Reyes 1 But if you eliminate the 10-point requirement, there will be some who will simply vote: Martinez 6 And that ends up helping Pedro, too, because his dominance keeps the other guys from getting votes. I think that the rule requiring ten points ended up skewing the results, because there were plenty of cases where guys got more points than they would otherwise have for drawing a walk, or getting a meaningless single, or pitching a scoreless mop up inning. It's why I like 2© best.

I think, in such a case, I would like to be able to vote 6 for the pitcher and zero for everyone else.

Okay, here are the options as I see them. (They're not all of the options, just the ones that can work without overly complicating the tallying effort.) 1. Same as in 2005 Ten points per game. No more than six for any one player. 2. Allow fewer points in a loss 2(a) Ten points for a win, anywhere from 5 to 10 points in a loss, up the voter's discretion. Maximum of 6 points for any one player. 2( Come up with a rule, based on the final score of the game, that assigns a point value for that game. A win would be ten points. A close loss might be 9, a drubbing might be 5. Everyone who votes allocates a number of points equal to the game's point value. For example, if the game is a 7, every voter awards 7 points. Maximum of 6 points for any one player. The rule to assign point value to a game would still need to be determined. 2© Schaefer Classic rules. Award a maximum of 10 points, no more than 6 to any one player. No minimum. 2( would get us the same result as the scaling factor that was mentioned previously. Instead of some games being a .7 and others a 1.4, for example (meaning the 10 points would be reduced to 7 or increased to 14) the ceiling remains at 10. No multiplication would be needed, but we'd still get the result of valuing performance in some games more than others. But as I think about it, I'm liking 2© more and more. It's a far simpler way of achieving what 2( gets us. Instead of creating some abstract formula, the scaling becomes more organic. Not all 10-3 losses are equal. In a game where the starting pitcher goes 8 scoreless innings, and then the bullpen gives up 10 runs in the ninth, you do have an outstanding pitching performace to reward, plus a few points to the guys who helped accumulate the runs that originally gave the Mets a lead. However, there could be a 10-3 loss in which all of the pitchers sucked, some more than others, and the 3 runs came long after the Mets were way behind. In that kind of game, you might only award a few token points. With method 2©, the first 10-3 game might end up as a 10 point game, or maybe an 8.5, or a 9.3, depending on how everyone votes. The second one might end up as a 4, or a 2.8, or a 3.73, again, depending on how the consensus turns out. It seems to me better to do it this way, valuing the game on a case-by-case basis, than by a hard-and-firm rule that says all x-run losses are the same.

For some reason I can't put my big fat orange finger on, the scaling up disturbs me. I guess the same can be accomplished by only scaling down, where necessary. An up-to-par Mets game would remain at ten points. A sub-par one could be scaled down, perhaps to as low as a 5. There would have to be some standard for what the scaling factor would be. Oh, and Johnny, I like the press release. Always remember, though, it's LINDSEY with an E, not LINDSAY with an A.

Edgy DC wrote: I think we need the ten-point control. I think we get bad data if everyone is giving diifferent scores. And maybe some programmer can come up with an online balot form with the name of all participants and an empty box next to his name in which a person can fill in the number of points next to the candidates name, with a running count of points at the bottom of the screen as he fills out his or her ballot, and then hit a submit button when the tally equals 10.00. And maybe we can vote for every game ever. I think we need the ten as a maxium. It gives scale to everything. But in a dud game, if somebody only awards five points, they're effectively giving a zero to a lot of people. And I don't really think that would skew things as much as giving fluff points to guys for not really doing much. As for your "maybe some programmer" idea, that thought did pop into my mind as a UMDB feature. And it would allow all games to be voted without a) me going crazy and needing to create 7,000 threads in this forum.

I'm not crazy about that idea either.

I guess it's time to unsticky this one.

I could have lived with it if he hadn't made "the Speech"

TheOldMole wrote: Still, I'd like to see 15 for a win, 5 for a loss. I think that's too extreme. The contributions to a 7-6 win shouldn't be three times that of the contributions in an 8-7 loss. My suggestion of 5 to 10 for a loss, and 10 for a win came about to address those dismal games where the Mets lose 8-0. We end up giving 1 or more points to a player simply for getting a walk or pitching a scoreless mop-up inning.

Negative points would kill a guy like Looper. When he gets a save, he usually gets about 1 point, because all he did was pitch one inning. But when he blows one, you could argue that he singlehandedly cost the Mets the game, so he'd be sure to get some -5's. Theoretically, if he saved 5 out of every 6 games, he'd end up with a net total of zero points.

I don't think there's any doubt that a successful steal generally increases the chance of scoring a run. (An exception might be when it causes the next guy to be intentionally walked, thereby taking the bat out of the hands of your best hitter.) But you have to figure the caught stealings, too. Every time a player is caught, it becomes impossible for him to score. So if a success increases the chance of scoring, and a caught eliminates it, where's the tipping point? I'm sure a guy with a 99% success rate is helping his team. A guy with a 1% rate is hurting it. The balance tilts somewhere in between, and it may not be at the 50% mark.

Edgy DC wrote: Is it possible to easily extract what the standings were in PotG wins? Unfortunately, no. In fact, it's not possible to do it at all for the entire season, since all of the details from April have been lost to the ezHacker. If you wanted to do from May 1 through the end of the season, you could probably do that without making yourself crazy. You could do it by scrolling through the five monthly summary threads in the 2005 POTG Forum. Each game's results are listed in chronological order, and for each game, the players are listed with the highest scorer first. For example: May 1, Beltran; May 2, Martinez; May 3, Floyd; May 4, Seo; May 5, Piazza. And so on and so on.

Maybe instead of per at bat or per inning, you could do it per game. After all, Schaefer points are accumlated game by game, not at bat by at bat. That also would smooth over the problem with starting pitchers vs. relievers. My one suggestion for refining the Schaefer rules for next year would be to allow fewer than 10 points in a loss. Make 10 mandatory in a win, but establish a minimum of 5 points in a loss. Any game the Mets win it should be pretty easy to get to 10 points. If the Mets win 17-15, all the points might go to the hitters. In a 3-0 win, it might tilt more towards the pitchers. Here's an extreme example, though. The Mets win 1-0 on a complete game shutout by Benson. The Mets get only one baserunner themselves: a solo homer by Victor Diaz. In that case, I'd go Benson 6, Diaz 4. Four points is a lot for a single swing of the bat, but as I said, it's the most extreme example. If the Mets lose 17-15, there are still hitters to reward, so we should be able to get to 10. If the Mets lose 2-0, there are pitchers who have earned points. The problem is when the Mets lose 12-0, and everybody pretty much sucked. In games like this, somebody might get 2 points for a lone single, in the effort to stretch to 10 points. If we were only stretching to 5 there would be fewer points earned for mediocrity. Sure, this would have cost Wright, Floyd, and Reyes some points, but I'd bet that it would have removed proportionately more points from guys like Mientkiewicz and Cairo. It's something to think about for next year, anyway.

I've been mentally pronouncing it as if it started with an L, but I recently discovered that it's actually an uppercase i.

Edgy DC wrote: My inital add-up of the points came to 1607.48. It should be 1620, give or take a fraction, shouldn't it? A bunch of games were undervoted, meaning not every voter awarded a full ten points per game. This happened more frequently in April and May, but it continued to happen through the end of the season. I'd say, "So-and-so, you only awarded 9 points" and in most cases, So-and-so would not revise their vote. I would prorate votes that went over 10 if they weren't edited, but I didn't do the same for those that were under. So some games got 9.85 points, or something like that, awarded instead of 10. Over the course of the season, that led to 12.52 points being lost.

And I do appreciate it!

The funny fractions only caused me a problem when the voter didn't do their math. If, after 7 votes, the total number of points awarded was 70.08, it could be tough to figure out who misvoted. But, since very few people used funny fractions, it wasn't hard to know who to zero in on. If everyone voted that way, it would have probably driven me crazy. Instead of eliminating funny fractions, I would ask anyone voting that way to sum up their votes on their PC's calculator before hitting submit.

I think it can be a starting point. There are a few players who finished a little lower or higher than they should have. Roberto Hernandez probably should be ranked higher than he was. And I think Zambrano and Mientkiewicz can drop a few notches. And to everyone who said thanks, above: you're welcome! I enjoyed following the precedent set by Ralph, Lindsey, and Bob. I felt like I was walking in the footsteps of greatness. I expect that I'll be willing to do this again in 2006, as long as consensus doesn't dictate that the format change too drastically. But that's a discussion for another time.

NEWSDAY Contacting Newsday The e-mail address of the sports department is sports@newsday.com. Didn't see a contact name. This is from their website: SUBMITTING NEWS TIPS & PRESS RELEASES Newsday receives hundreds of press releases each day. While we cannot guarantee that any item will be used, a few simple procedures will help ensure that your release gets to the right editors and increases your chance of getting coverage. Tips: Keep releases short Double-space Write clearly, addressing who, what, where, when and why in the first two paragraphs. Identify the organization or individual sending the release and include the name and daytime phone number (with area code) of someone we can contact if we have questions. Date the release and include whether the material is for immediate use or for release at a later date. Follow-up calls are suggested after submitting a press release. Call early in the day to avoid calling reporters or editors when they are on deadline. Be prepared to fax or mail additional documents that support your publicity needs. Deadlines: Every section of the paper has a different deadline. Check the information below and submit material to us no later than the times mentioned.

Here it is! The big announcement! Thanks to all CPFers who voted throughout the year. Next spring we can discuss whether or not we'll do it again. The Schaefer Mets Players of the Month for 2005APRILMAYJUNEJULYAUGUSTSEPTEMBER

What's strange is that the person who created the poll didn't include a category that expressed his own preference.

I'll reguess 22. I think I had it, but just put down the wrong name. Is it Mike Phillips, 1977? I had guessed Joel Youngblood, but he was the guy they received in that trade, not the guy they gave up.

I've never seen waffles fly at any meal. I've seen books fly off the shelves. I've seen a dragon fly and a horse fly. I've even seen a house fly. But I've done seen 'bout everything when I see a waffle fly.

They did things differently then. If you closely examine the painting, you'd see that they were eating Belgian waffles.

I call it "The Last Brunch." (That was Leonardo's original title, I think.)