As usual, your Wednesday reading list starts with a couple of BtB contributors:
- Marc Normandin focused on Julio Lugo for his most recent player profile.
- Marc also took a look at Sammy Sosa's potential comeback at Unfiltered, here and here.
- I took another approach to starting rotation analysis today at The Hardball Times.
- Phil Birnbaum points to an interesting study of GMs focusing on the short-term in football:
Would you pay an interest rate of 174% for a loan? Apparently, football GMs do. In their study of the NFL draft (previously reviewed here), Cade Massey and Richard Thaler looked at trades that involved only draft choices, and discovered, based on the value of the draft choices, that the average implied discount rate on those trades was 173.8%This would be much tougher to analyze with baseball, since of course draft picks aren't traded. But once we get a better idea of what prospects are worth, it'll be feasible.
- A couple of interesting tools for fantasy players:
- RotoAuthority has released their 2007 projections. Best of all, they are in a fancy spreadsheet that you can use during your fantasy draft. I haven't looked closely at the numbers, so I don't know how they compare to other more established projection systems, but the presentation is really impressive.
- Heater Magazine (which both Marc and I contribute to) has created a "groundbreaking utility" called Wheelhouse. It's an application you can use offline that contains career stats, splits, and recent gamelogs for all active players. Right now it's free; during the season, weekly updates will be availale to Heater subscribers.
- RotoAuthority has released their 2007 projections. Best of all, they are in a fancy spreadsheet that you can use during your fantasy draft. I haven't looked closely at the numbers, so I don't know how they compare to other more established projection systems, but the presentation is really impressive.