The A’s
The MLB Squad
The regular season is almost over and it looks like so will the A’s season. After looking pretty good through mid-August, the bullpen fell apart and has been one of the worst in baseball, costing the team multiple wins. It was always a haphazard group, but still disappointing to watch it all crumble. All of our remaining games are against the Mariners or Astros, making finishing strong far from a cakewalk. Almost regardless of how we finish, this offseason is going to be tough between labor negotiations between the owners and players and stadium negotiations between the team and Oakland. I expect some of our bigger name players to be traded with the outfield and bullpen losing several players to free agency and not many internal reinforcements on the way, though I certainly hope I’m wrong. However, I was able to make it to the last home game of the year, a thrilling walk off win against the Astros that helped alleviate the stress of everything else going on with this season.
The Prospects
The A’s minor league season was a mixed bag. Tyler Soderstrom looked great, but then missed the last month and a half due to injury. Nick Allen also progressed, but struggled adapting to AAA. Logan Davidson played every game in AA, but was pretty bad. Robert Puason made it through a season in A ball, but struck out 40% of the time and made 29 errors. Pedro Pineda had a good debut, but struck out 36% of the time in the ACL. Jordan Diaz basically repeated his 2019 line at a higher level, but still doesn’t project well on defense. Brayan Buelvas showed more power than expected, but hit for a low average. Michael Guldberg and Zack Gelof had encouraging seasons, though both did it in less than a full season (Guldberg due to injury, Gelof as a 2021 draftee). Lawrence Butler performed quite well in A and A+ ball, but still strikes out a lot. Colin Peluse is pretty much the only A’s prospect who really doesn’t seem to have any cons to his season.
It feels like the A’s need someone like Luis Barrera or Skye Bolt to finally break through to help the outfield next year, and hopefully Nick Allen will be able to come up and unseat Elvis Andrus at some point in the year. On the pitching side, we need AJ Puk to contribute at the MLB level in some capacity, even if it’s just as a middle inning relief option who can soak up some innings.
The Shadow Draft
Overall I feel pretty good about my draft, though it’s extremely hard to draw conclusions - even moreso than usual - because so many players played so few games. Carson Williams certainly played better than Max Muncy in their respective complex leagues, though Muncy was limited due to a COVID outbreak at the A’s facility. I may still lean too much towards the athletes with approach issues as reflected in the Lonnie White Jr, Denzel Clarke, and Gavin Conticello picks. Zack Gelof is looking like a very good pick by the A’s and some of their later picks seem okay too, though some were pushed all the way to A+ ball in order to fill in gaps due to injuries.
Right now I think the only changes I would make are swapping in Gelof for Lonnie White in the second round and taking TJ White instead of Caleb Roberts in the fourth. I might also take Scott Randall or another pitcher instead of going for upside with Gavin Conticello in the sixth, which would potentially free up money for another round.
Ottoneu Baseball Recap
It’s been a pretty good season, but I think some lessons were certainly learned. It looks like I’ll finish 1st in 5xprospect5 and 2nd in Minnesota Ottoneu Association, two leagues I joined this year. Hayden and I will likely finish 5th in 20 Sided Diamond, the only 20 team league in the Ottoverse. Lastly, I’m in the third place matchup in Harry Caray Memorial after finishing second in points and record (though to different people) during the regular season.
I’m learning how to value players in 5x5 because while that’s the format I played prior to Ottoneu, there were no salaries, and this lack of knowledge made the trade deadline difficult to navigate. I ultimately stood pat but think there are moves to make in the offseason. The lesson from the Minnesota Ottoneu Association is that if you have several elite RPs, then you can get by with just one or two extra relievers and spend the money and roster spots elsewhere, potentially creating even more surplus. In Harry Caray Memorial, the lesson was simple: don’t stay $25+ under the cap the whole season, especially when your pitching is mediocre. Find a way to spend it.
Projects
- I’ve contributed some new rollups to Her Hoop Stats such as the historical league trends. The new code itself has been pretty straightforward, but it’s been good working closer to the database and learning more about checking the data as it flows through the system.
- Updated my Ottoneu auction tool to include players on waivers
- Added the NFL’s projections to my fantasy football waivers tool
- I wrote a quick tutorial for PBPStats and link up some scripts for my win probability model that uses it in gathering data. Write up control score
- Get tables in my JavaScript page for d3 hoops - would really love to do this before the college basketball season starts so I can have a beta to show off
- General goals for Python projects is to add testing, typing, and put them on Streamlit where possible
- For the baseball offseason, “solve” a year of MLB Showdown using showdown bot and linear programming
- I’ve wanted to write about the environment and sustainability for a while. I’m still searching for the right words but I think another project in my future is poking around more with some environmental datasets. Sustainability and the environment is important to me and hopefully I can use my data skills to help move the fight against climate change (and capitalism’s role in it?) forward.