The Game Outside Of The Game

During the off-season there is a big lull.  Normally we have our Awards Banquet in October or November (2013 is a bit of an anomaly since the Commission has been delinquent in putting together the Award Ballot.  We're a week away from Christmas and haven't had the Banquet yet).  Then we don't have a lot going on until the first Sunday in January when Winter Waivers begin.  Enter Matt Bentel, he's an Idea Man.  He suggested a way for us (him and me) to get through the doledrums of the winter and basketball conversation on talk radio.  He proposed a CFCL type draft with Cub players.

Here's a quick reminder of how the CFCL works.  We draft teams of 23 players fitting specific positions (5 OF, 3B, SS, 2B, MI, 1B, OU, 2 C, 1 U, 9 P).  We accumulate stats in the following categories:  On-Base Percentage, Total Bases, Steals, Runs, RBIs, Quality Starts, Holds+Saves, WHiP, ERA and K/BB.

His idea was for us to draft from all the Cub teams from 1974-2011 (2011 is when we held our draft and 1974 is as early as both of us can remember actually watching Cub games.  Matt, since he is much older, can remember back into the '60s.  I being the youngster can only remember back to 1974).  We would not be allowed to do any statistical research.  Once you drafted a player, you would wait until the end of the draft, THEN do the statistical research and decide which year you wanted to use.  So Matt drafted Ryne Sandberg with his first pick.  Once we completed all the picks Matt looked at Sandberg's career and decided if he wanted the MVP year of 1984, the power year of 1990 or a year when Ryne stole 50 bases (he chose 1990).

We did this on the honor system and then compiled the stats.  The only variance we made from how the CFCL competes is we used Wins instead of Quality Starts and Saves instead of Holds+Saves essentially because baseball-reference.com doesn't provide QS and H+S.  We made one pick per day.  So Matt picked Monday, I picked Tuesday, etc.  This allowed for us to draft over a month and a half, helping to kill the dead of winter.

I will say, as stupid as this may sound, it was the most exhausting exercise I have ever been a part of.  Each day I was emotionally torn between whom I should select or who Matt was going to steal from me.  Below are the results.  Some interesting challenges we faced, for example, was in our pitching selections.  Matt picked Ryan Dempster and I chose Kerry Wood.  Once the draft was over and we selected the seasons we wanted to use the stats for we could look at the other team's roster and anticipate their choices and thus make our own.  But with Wood and Dempster it provided an added layer of strategy.  Why?  Because both Wood and Dempster had years with the Cubs in which they were starters and closers.  Would Matt use Dempster's closing year or starting year?  Should I use Wood as a closer or starter?  Ends up we both chose closer.

There were a myriad of strategies.  I encourage you to find a friend and challenge them to a draft.  This year Matt and I are two picks away from completing a similar draft, but this year our pool of players are Hall of Famers whose careers began 1900 or later.  We also trimmed our rosters to seventeen instead of the full 23 (getting rid of 1 OF, 1 U and 4 P).  The other difference we're doing this year is instead of choosing a player's individual season, we are using the 162 game average line from baseball-reference.com.  Adds another layer of decision making when you realize that a player may have compiled some great stats, but if the last few years of their career were less than stellar, it could kill their yearly average.  I'll post the rosters and results sometime after Christmas.  I don't think I'll be as lucky this year as I was in 2011.

Here are the rosters and stats from our Cubs draft.

Matt	At Bats	sac flies	Hits	HBP	Walks	Runs	RBIs	Stolen Bases	Total Bases	OBP		IP	ER	Hits	Walks	Strikeouts	Wins	Saves	ERA	Ratio	K:BB
Ryne Sandberg - 1990	615	9	188	1	50	116	100	25	344	0.35407	Rod Beck - 1998	80.3	27	86	20	81	3	51	3.0262	1.3200	4.0500
Derrek Lee - 2005	594	7	199	5	85	120	107	15	393	0.41823	Greg Maddux 1992	268	65	201	70	199	20	0	2.1828	1.0112	2.8429
Aramis Ramirez - 2004	547	7	174	3	49	99	103	0	316	0.37294	Mike Bielecki - 1989	212.3	74	187	81	147	18	0	3.1371	1.2624	1.8148
Keith Moreland - 1985	587	9	180	1	68	74	106	12	258	0.37444	Mark Prior - 2003	211.3	57	183	50	245	18	0	2.4278	1.1027	4.9000
Henry Rodriguez - 1999	447	1	136	0	56	72	87	2	243	0.38095	Ted Lilly - 2008	204.6	93	187	64	184	17	0	4.0909	1.2268	2.8750
Jerome Walton - 1989	475	5	139	6	27	64	46	24	183	0.33528	Mitch Williams - 1989	81.6	25	71	52	67	4	36	2.7574	1.5074	1.2885
Juan Pierre - 2006	699	1	204	8	32	87	40	58	271	0.32973	Ryan Dempster - 2005	92	32	83	49	89	5	33	3.1304	1.4348	1.8163
Mark Grace - 1998	595	7	184	3	93	92	89	4	280	0.40115	Carlos Marmol - 2010	77.6	22	40	52	138	2	38	2.5515	1.1856	2.6538
Alex Gonzalez -2002	513	2	127	3	46	58	61	5	218	0.31206	Carlos Zambrano - 2004	209.2	64	174	81	188	16	0	2.7533	1.2189	2.3210
Geovany Soto - 2008	494	5	141	2	62	66	86	0	249	0.36412									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Gary Matthews - 1984	491	10	143	3	103	101	82	17	210	0.41021									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Mark Bellhorn - 2002	445	0	115	6	76	86	56	7	228	0.37381									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Bill Madlock - 1976	514	4	174	11	56	68	84	15	257	0.41197									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Michael Barrett - 2004	456	8	131	5	33	55	65	1	223	0.33665									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Total	7472	75	2235	57	836	1158	1112	185	3673	0.37062		1436.9	459	1212	519	1338	103	158	2.8749	1.2047	2.5780
Rich										#DIV/0!
Jody Davis - 1984	523	7	134	1	47	55	94	5	220	0.31488	Rick Reuschel - 1977	252	78	233	74	166	20	0	2.7857	1.2183	2.2432
Andre Dawson - 1987	621	2	178	7	32	90	137	11	353	0.32779	Jon Lieber - 2001	232.3	98	226	41	148	20	0	3.7968	1.1494	3.6098
Moises Alou - 2004	601	6	176	0	68	106	106	3	335	0.36148	Randy Myers - 1993	75.3	26	65	26	86	2	53	3.1076	1.2085	3.3077
Starlin Castro - 2011	674	4	207	2	35	91	66	22	291	0.34126	Lee Smith - 1983	103.3	19	70	41	91	4	29	1.6554	1.0745	2.2195
Rick Monday - 1976	534	3	145	2	60	107	77	5	271	0.34558	Rick Sutcliffe - 1984	150.3	45	123	39	155	16	0	2.6946	1.0778	3.9744
Ivan DeJesus - 1978	619	2	172	2	74	104	35	41	219	0.35581	Bruce Sutter - 1977	107.3	16	69	23	129	7	31	1.3420	0.8574	5.6087
Alfonso Soriano - 2007	579	3	173	4	31	97	70	19	324	0.33712	Kerry Wood - 2008	66.3	24	54	18	84	5	34	3.2579	1.0860	4.6667
Mark DeRosa - 2008	505	8	144	9	69	103	87	6	243	0.37563	Ray Burris - 1976	249	86	251	70	112	15	0	3.1084	1.2892	1.6000
Carlos Pena - 2011	493	7	111	4	101	72	80	2	228	0.35702	Joe Borowski - 2003	68.3	20	53	19	66	2	33	2.6354	1.0542	3.4737
Rick Wilkins - 1993	446	1	135	3	50	78	73	2	250	0.37600									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Leon Durham - 1982	539	2	168	2	66	84	90	28	281	0.38752									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Bill Buckner - 1982	657	10	201	5	36	93	105	15	290	0.34181									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Bob Dernier - 1984	536	0	149	2	63	94	32	45	194	0.35607									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Ron Cey - 1983	581	9	160	5	62	73	90	0	267	0.34551									#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Total	7908	64	2253	48	794	1247	1142	204	3766	0.35115		1304.1	412	1144	351	1037	91	180	2.8433	1.1464	2.9544
		Matt	Rich
	TB	3673	3766
	Runs	1158	1247
	RBIs	1112	1142
	SB	185	204
	OBP	0.37062	0.35115
	Wins	103	91
	Saves	158	180
	ERA	2.8749	2.8433
	Ratio	1.2047	1.1464
	K:BB	2.5780	2.9544