|
26 August 2004 |
|
Vol. X No. 20 |
|
26 August 2004 |
|
Vol. X No. 20 |
|
|
ISBL HOME WEEK 20 DISKS & PAST FILES FINANCES AUCTION SITE FORUMS E-MAIL WEEK 20 MATCHUPS USAGE ISSUES VIOLATIONS NOTES TRANSACTIONS AUCTION DL REPORT POWS
PLEASE READ -- IMPORTANT!!! A COUPLE OF FRIENDLY REMINDERS 1. Be sure to check the DL Report near the bottom of the Gazette before reactivating injured players. Remember, all players placed on the DL must remain there for a minimum of 15 full days, as per ISBL rules, regardless of whether or not their injury was for fewer days. Pay special attention to those players noted in the DL Report with a CAREFUL!!! designation. These are players whose injuries were for fewer than 15 days, and if you reactivate them early (the game program is not designed to recognize the 15-day minimum, and it will do it), your team will face potential fines, replays and/or other disciplinary sanctions. When in doubt, and even when not, always check the DL Report in the Gazette. 2. When determining usage, you need to make sure that you're looking at that player's complete stats for the year, not just their usage while on your club. You can do this by making sure that the "Show combined stats" box in the player's profile is checked, or by running a Team Status report in the Team Reports. When in doubt, and even when not, always check the Usage Issues in the Gazette. It's been suggested that perhaps
the registrar needs to go into the game and change all sub-15-day
injuries of DL'ed players to 15 days, or artificially disable overused
players.
Additionally, Junior Draft guys are now shown as farmed, rather than
disabled, and their short names coded <<like so>>, so you
don't go calling them up. This, at least,
worked. AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME ... With the season now three-quarters complete, it's as good a time as any to look at the contested races for championship, promotional and relegational placement, and how the remaining schedule impacts those teams still jockeying for position. For this, we turn to Finns owner Chris McMains for some analysis ... Fire up those calculators! Well guys, we’re just rounding the final turn and are headed for the home stretch. I’ll try to put my own geeky spin on the races. First, let's take a look at the remaining strength of schedule:
This represents the weighted Pythagorean winning percentage of each team’s remaining opponents. A high number indicates a tough schedule, .500 is average and low numbers indicate an easier schedule. So now using that strength of schedule figure as well as each team’s performance to date we can make some guesses as to where teams will end up. To determine this I’ll use another Bill James tool named - for some strange reason - log5. It’s explained in detail at the DMB website. Again, instead of using plain old winning percentage, I’ll use Pythagorean winning percentage, as that will tend to diminish the role of luck. Once I determine how many wins I predict each team picks up from here to the end of the season, I add that total to the actual standings from this week. The results:
Now there is one catch – there’s always a catch – these numbers don’t account in any way for the swing in talent a team might have gained or lost in recent trades. For instance, the Force probably added as much firepower as anyone at the deadline, while chief rival Beltway downgraded from Giambi to McGriff. How much each team increased or decreased their talent is an exercise left for the reader. But at the same time, realize that value of trades with a quarter of a season left is often greatly exaggerated. At this point in the season, a straight swap of say Frank Catalonotto for Barry Bonds would likely only result in a swing of about two wins. It looks like we’ll have some pretty good races to watch. Good luck to all.
All series are seven games, scheduled 8/20-22, 24-27 (EXCEPT interleague, six games, 8/20-22, 24-25 & 27 -- please note the odd off day [26th] for the interleague series)
F irst team listed is the away team for the first three games.
Be sure to get in contact with your opponent early ("e-mail him before he can e-mail you" is always a good rule to follow) and figure out if you're going to NetPlay or MP them, then schedule accordingly.
The following players have exceeded 110% usage for the year. New additions are in bold. They have been mandatorily farmed for the year, can not be traded, and are ineligible for postseason and cup play.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CUT YOUR ROSTER DOWN TO 25 MEN BEFORE STARTING THIS WEEK. BE CAREFUL TO KEEP PLAYERS ON DISABLED LIST FOR MINIMUM 15 DAYS. Check the DL listings below to be sure what date players are eligible to return. PLEASE NOTE: The game program allows players to be brought back before they've served 15 days. ISBL DOES NOT, so please consult the DL listings to ensure that you're bringing players back on the correct date. DON'T MAKE NON-DL-RELATED MID-SERIES ROSTER MOVES. The only moves you can make during a series are to put someone on the DL or to take them off (and an accompanying promote/farm to cover THAT player). And be sure to consult the list below to see when your player is eligible to come off the DL. Remember what Troy always says. Recheck your manager profile weekly to make sure phantom zeros aren't popping into your usage limits. Check to see if you have injured players, or players eligible to be reactivated. Be sure to check that your roster is at 25, especially if you have acquired new players through trade or free agency, as the game tends to make all of these players active. We would advise those of you that constructed preseason manager profiles (before the Week 1 disk was released) to double check them to ensure that playing limits are correct. The last preseason disk that was posted showed several players with settings of zero, and the CM will pass over many of these players when your team is away. You can see this on the final page of the profile where the players are listed. The playing limits were corrected to the actual usage numbers on the Week 1 disk. If you put together an MP using an older V9 disk, you can correct the playing limits this way:
Of course, once you've corrected these playing time limits, you can manipulate them as needed to make sure that players are used only in the specific roles you want them to play (i.e. if you have a pitcher rated both to start and relieve, and you only want him used as a starter, you can set his relief appearances to zero). Also, be sure to note that in Version 9, there's a new page for setting player-specific tendencies, as well as team tendencies. PAY ATTENTION TO OPPONENT'S INSTRUCTIONS If an owner takes the time to send you an MP and/or instructions as to how to install his pitchers/lineups, take care to use these. Seen a couple of instances this year where MPs have been sent, only to be ignored/looked over/forgotten by opponents. If they're sending you an MP, it means they have changes from what's on the disk that may affect their rotation, or player usage, or whatever. So use them. Otherwise, you're risking having to play the games over again. And might get fined for repeated occurances.
When your opponent has
taken the time and care to create an MP for your series that week,
make sure to import it into the database. If you're unsure that
you're doing things correctly, please contact Micah, Troy or Tim for
help. Some important things to consider:
SOME ADDITIONAL DIRECTION ON PLAYING IN NETPLAY
When FTF players set their
rosters to 25 (or make changes to their roster between weeks), whoever
the host is won't have those handy, so you'll need to at least make
whatever pre-series changes on your disk, generate an MP file with
those changes (just like you would a file with played games to send),
and send it to whichever of the two of you is hosting. That's an
extra step we haven't had to contend with before with the NetMeeting,
where you could just make the changes yourself or instruct your
opponent to do so. And you can STILL instruct your opponent to do
so, but you'll need to do that before you link onto the NetPlay,
'cause there's no way to get to the MPs once you've linked.
Because of this, it's advisable that for the series, one team remains
the host throughout, who will have made his changes and installed the
MP (or made the changes as directed) of their opponent.
Switching
between who is the home manager and who is the away manager is pretty
simple if you're mid-series and already connected with one as home and
one as away. The host needs only to click on "NetPlay" in
the top menu line and then "Swap manager roles" to flip
them.
As
for changing options, this is done by the host. Make sure the settings
for the host are "Human" and for away are
"Remote." If for some reason, you get into the game and one
party doesn't have control of, say, baserunning, have the host go in
and fix it.
If you have any additional questions about V9 play, please direct them to stats@isbl.com.
You can track your finances, as well as your payroll ceiling, at the ISBL Finances page (http://www.isbl.com/isbl_2004/isbl_finances.htm).
If you want players put up for auction, you need to send an e-mail to stats@isbl.com by Thursday afternoon stating what players you want put on the board. Players will typically be put on the board at 9 pm Eastern Thursday night and stay there for 72 hours. If you are a new owner and need to set up an auction account, please contact stats@isbl.com. Please be sure to check if you have injured players. This lists only players already placed on the DL. NOTE: Not sure if V9 handles DL'ed players the same as V8. With V8, you typically could call a player back up on the day listed as his last day on the injury line (i.e. if if said "Out from 4/20/2004 to 5/17/2004," it'd let you call him back up on the 17th), so that's what I've used here. If it turns out that it's one more day, let me know so I can start accounting for the extra day. Sorry if this causes any confusion. These players were DL'ed during the past week and must remain there for at least 15 days:
8 teams voted: NOM, BAN, MEA, SID, PRA, DIR, CRO, NES SENIOR BATTER: Albert Pujols (Meat Possums) Pujols (MEA): 7 votes -- all except ... Palmeiro,R (CRO): 1 vote -- DIR Moeller (FIN): no votes
SENIOR PITCHER: Jamie Moyer (Crown Royals) Moyer (CRO): 4 votes -- MEA, PRA, DIR, NES Vazquez,J (CRO): 3 votes -- NOM, BAN, CRO Halladay (GRI): 1 vote -- SID Zito (FOR): no votes
JUNIOR BATTER: Edgar Martinez (Underdogs) Martinez,E (UND): 7 votes -- all except ... Banks (NOI): 1 vote -- SID Thome (SID): no votes
JUNIOR PITCHER: Brandon Webb (Sidewinders) Webb (SID): 7 votes -- all except Morris,M (SID): 1 vote -- DIR
POW BALLOT FOR WEEK 19 You can vote for BOTH Senior AND Junior POWs. Submit by SUNDAY, 5 pm EDT. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
