Fantasy baseball 2012 | Sleepers, busts and Ron Shandler?s Baseball Forecaster
Know that the fantasy baseball information I provide this year is going to be heavily influenced by Ron Shandler?s 2012 Baseball Forecaster. I will recommend the book to any fantasy baseball player. Warning: It is statistics heavy that it will put some people into a trance. Others will be terrified. It also handles a lot of high level concepts and spends a lot of time speaking to fantasy veterans. If it?s your first rodeo, and you?re not a statistics major, you might want to start with a less complex source ? or check out our take on the concepts in 2012. I?m going to go over a few of the book?s broader points in this post to give you some of the baselines I will use in my 2012 predictions and to hopefully encourage you to purchase Shandler?s publication. First and foremost, Shandler understands and flat out tells fantasy owners that they should use his book as a baseline and not as some sort of all-inclusive fantasy battle plan. He encourages readers to form their own opinions, much like Chinstrap Ninjas does, based on the concepts he introduces and explains. Baseball has so many statistics and potential indicators that the writers of the book could not scour through every one. However, the book focuses on several key statistics. Because that is part of the book?s hook, I?m not going to go into great detail or reveal any of the secrets explained there. However, like I said above, the book?s influence will be seen throughout my rankings and projections in 2012. For now, let?s go over a few general points from the first few pages of the Forecaster. [h=3]Adds/drops/trades[/h]I went over the first point in my first baseball post of the year, but it?s worth quoting again: ?Every player we add to our roster during the season means we?re eliminating one player we likely rostered through more careful analysis.? We will be conducting at least one Chinstrap Ninjas draft and hold league this year. Please let us know if you are interested by posting in the comments or emailing ep(at)chinstrapninjas.com. [h=3]Fighting, scraping, clawing for 5%[/h]According to another section of the Forecaster, multiple sources have determined that the best outcome any prognostication system can achieve is about 70%. However, three-year averages adjusted for age are good enough to produce a success rate of 65 percent. So that means fantasy baseball experts are shooting to be more right about 5% of the players in the Major Leagues. I want to put that five percent in context: There were 452 batters who had 100 at-bats last season and 325 pitchers who faced 150 batters (at least 50 innings pitched) in 2011. Five percent of 777 is about 39 players. That doesn?t seem like a lot, but if 10 of those players are unexpected top-20 performers and another 10 are complete busts, that can make a big difference for Chinstrap Ninjas readers. [h=3]Sleepers, busts and a flabby mid-section[/h]However, a few paragraphs later, Shandler asks if it is really worth going all-in when predicting sleepers and busts. I?m going to quote this part because I don?t want to mess it up. In the book, Shandler quotes another expert of fanalytics, John Burnson: ?? No system is 100% reliable, and in trying to capture the outliers, you weaken the middle and thereby lose more predictive pull than you gain.? In other words, attempting to predict sleepers and busts brings the reliability of the rest of the system down. All of those revelations can be found in the first 12 pages of a 281-page book. I don?t make any money off the sales of the book, but I cannot recommend it enough. For fantasy baseball fanatics, especially the statistic geeks among us, this is an immense encyclopedia of awesome. Check it out if you can. Don?t worry, we?re not going to eliminate sleepers and busts from our fantasy baseball predictions, but maybe there is a better way to present them. For the mainstream sites, predictive correctness is probably a greater priority than it is for us. Most readers who find Chinstrap Ninjas are not looking for basic concepts. We welcome all kind of fantasy players, but we also know that many of our readers play in leagues that don?t follow the 5×5 industry standard. They already know where they?re ranking the top 20 shortstops, catchers and third basemen. What they?re looking for are ?outliers,? as they are described in the Forecaster. At the least our readers are looking for prognosticators who can convince them to believe or not believe the sleepers and busts they?ve already predicted. Should sleepers and busts be reflected in rankings and projections? Is it a better to have boring rankings/projections and warn people, ?hey, this player might be a bust (or sleeper)?? Let us know in the comments.
Tags: Fantasy Sports, Fantasy Baseball Article Link: http://www.chinstrapninjas.com/fanta...ll-forecaster/
New York ? America's No. 3 burger chain is testing a risky new plan to get its mojo back: Delivering Whoppers to your door
Burger King may have?lost its spot as the No. 2 U.S. burger chain to Wendy's, but it's not taking its demotion sitting down. (McDonald's is still comfortably No. 1.) BK is borrowing a page from the pizza playbook and rolling out home delivery of its signature Whoppers, fries, and other fast-food fare, starting at a handful of Washington, D.C.?area locations. Some caveats: No fountain drinks, coffee, breakfast foods, or milkshakes; delivery costs $2 an order; and you must live within a 10-minute drive of a participating Burger King. But BK not only guarantees 30-minute delivery ? it's promising the Holy Grail of burger delivery: "Proprietary thermal packaging technology" that will keep your fries crisp and burger "hot and fresh." Is this "couch potato's dream" the key to Burger King's comeback?
Delivery is a no-brainer for BK: Arguably, home-delivered Whoppers and fries are "disastrous for a country struggling with an ever-expanding collective waistline," says Rene Lynch in the Los Angeles Times. But from a business perspective, this idea seems sure-fire, especially if Burger King really can keep burgers and fries from turning into a soggy mess en route. Let's face it: "Home delivery is convenient, and Americans love convenience." "Burger King gives home delivery a try"
But are we really this lazy??Here's the flaw in Burger King's plan, says Hamilton Nolan at?Gawker: The King wants you to pony up an extra $2 "to wait 30 minutes to get food from a restaurant that is less than 10 minutes away." For that to work, you have to believe that American burger junkies consider the walk from couch to car to be "too strenuous" and value inertia "far more than they value either their own money" or their need for more immediate gratification. "Home delivery of fast food is the inevitable next step"
This will succeed ? if BK works out the kinks: BK isn't aiming for the obese-slacker market,?says Michael Rosenwald in?The Washington Post. It's targeting busy families.?And in my own test run, the results were "pretty darn good: The fries were hot and crispy, the Whopper was fresh and unsoggy," and ordering online was a breeze. On the other hand, it took the food an hour to arrive. If BK can feed time-crunched America's "insatiable" burger appetite a little faster, it really "might be on to something." "Having it your way at home: Taste-testing Burger King delivery"
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LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) ? The Port of Long Beach, the nation's second-largest cargo container facility, reached a tentative $4.6 billion, 40-year lease with a major Hong Kong-based shipping container line, it was reported Thursday.
Work began earlier on the California harbor's $1.2 billion Middle Harbor Redevelopment, its largest-ever terminal upgrade and expansion project. It includes a new terminal, upgraded wharfs, a storage area and expanded on-dock rail yard; when completed, it is expected to add 15,000 jobs to the local economy.
The deal with Orient Overseas Container Line, commonly known as OOCL, is expected to be announced Thursday afternoon by Port of Long Beach executive director J. Christopher Lytle.
OOCL will take over the entire 300-acre-plus Middle Harbor site, which will have the capacity to handle three million cargo containers.
"This agreement represents a major endorsement of our vision for the port by one of the leading maritime companies in the world," Lytle told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/xreIsU ).
OOCL has a fleet of 84 owned and chartered ships and is the world's 12th largest ocean shipping line.
Long Beach, which handles cargo valued at more than $140 billion annually, ranks second to the neighboring Port of Los Angeles in the number of cargo containers handled.
The OOCL announcement comes after a down year for cargo at the port, which lost the Hyundai shipping line and its California United Terminals to Los Angeles rather than wait for completion of the Middle Harbor project.
OOCL chief executive Philip Chow told the Times that the agreement "demonstrates our long-term commitment to the Port of Long Beach as the gateway of choice for North America and solidifies our economic partnership with the region."
(Reuters) ? Celebrity chef Paula Deen, best known for her high-calorie southern cooking featured in cookbooks and on popular Food Network shows, confirmed on Tuesday she has type 2 diabetes.
Speaking on NBC's Today show, Deen, 64, said she found out three years ago during a routine physical exam that she had the disease.
"I'm here today to let the world know that it is not a death sentence," she said on the morning show, adding that she will be a paid spokeswoman for drug company Novo Nordisk.
Along with her sons, Bobby and Jamie, who she often collaborates with in the kitchen, Deen said she will talk about her life with diabetes and recipes that fit her lifestyle for the company's "Diabetes in a New Light" program.
Deen rose to popularity for her Southern comfort food on Food Network shows "Paula's Home Cooking" and "Paula's Best Dishes". She put her cooking skills to work first in the late 1980's with a home-based meal delivery service.
Later, she opened a Savannah restaurant, "The Lady and Sons", with her children and then started writing cookbooks, according to her website.
With ample butter a staple of many Deen recipes, the famous chef said on Today that she did not keep her diagnosis private to save her cooking reputation.
"I wanted to bring something to the table when I came forward and I've always been one to think I bring hope because I've had lots of obstacles in my life y'all" she said on the show, referencing a years-long battle with agoraphobia.
She said she doesn't eat how she cooks on her show on a daily basis and wouldn't encourage others to either.
"I've always encouraged moderation," she said on NBC's Today.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for the majority of the nearly 26 million diabetes cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Type 2 diabetes is usually linked to older age, obesity and physical inactivity or a family history of the disease, according to the CDC.
WASHINGTON ? Newt Gingrich said Mitt Romney raised taxes as Massachusetts governor. Romney countered he cut taxes 19 times. Both were basically right, but decidedly one-sided, in the Republican presidential debate Monday night.
A look at some of the claims in the debate and how they compare with the facts:
GINGRICH: Romney "raised taxes."
ROMNEY: "We reduced taxes 19 times."
THE FACTS: Romney largely held the line on tax increases but there were notable exceptions. The state raised business taxes by $140 million in one year with measures mostly recommended by Romney. As well, the Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers raised hundreds of millions of dollars from higher fees and fines ? taxation by another name. Romney himself proposed raising nearly $60 million by creating 33 new fees and increasing 57 others. Romney won praise from anti-tax advocates by firmly backing income tax cuts ? and criticism over the business taxes and fees.
___
ROMNEY: "Three years into office, he doesn't have a jobs plan."
FACT CHECK: Like them or not, President Barack Obama actually has proposed several plans intended to spur the economy and create jobs. The most well-known was his stimulus plan, introduced in February 2009, which included about $800 billion in tax cuts and spending.
At the end of 2010, Obama struck a deal with GOP congressional leaders on a package intended to stimulate hiring and growth. The deal cut the Social Security payroll tax, which provided about an extra $1,000 a year to an average family. It also extended an unemployment benefits program that provided up to 99 weeks of aid.
And in September, Obama introduced his most recent jobs plan, rolling it out in a speech to the full Congress in which he urged Congress to "pass it right away." It included $450 billion in tax cuts and new spending, including greater cuts to payroll taxes and tax breaks for companies that hire those who've been out of work for six months or more. The proposal also would have spent $50 billion to upgrade schools and included other infrastructure spending. Almost none of it has been passed into law.
___
ROMNEY: "We invested in well over 100 different businesses. And the people have looked at the places that have added jobs and lost jobs and that record is pretty much available for people to take a close look at."
THE FACTS: Romney's record as a venture capitalist at Bain Capital has been presented by his campaign highly selectively; namely, by detailing several big success stories and ignoring the job losses that resulted from Bain-owned plants and companies that closed or shrank their workforce. His overall record is not even close to being known, because it is so complex. Many of the companies are private, without the public disclosure requirements that big corporations have, and his campaign has not released details.
Under scrutiny, Romney has stepped back from claiming that he created more than 100,000 jobs overall with his Bain investments. That claim was never substantiated. In the debate, he named four successful investments in companies that now ? a decade after he left Bain ? employ about 120,000 people, a more measured and accurate statement, but one that still does not account for losses elsewhere.
___
RICK SANTORUM: "My ads have been positive. The only ad that I've ever put up has contrasted myself with the other candidates, and does so in a way talking about issues."
THE FACTS: Santorum is coming out with an ad this week accusing Romney of being "just like Obama" and saying Romney "once bragged he's even more liberal than Ted Kennedy on social issues," two negative assertions that go beyond a mere look at issues. As a Massachusetts senate candidate in 1994, Romney wrote to a group of gay Republicans that outlined a plan to do better than Kennedy to make "equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern." But that's not bragging about liberalism, and Romney is hardly more liberal than the late senator ? or Obama ? on social issues. Romney, for example, supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Santorum has, in fact, stayed positive in the campaign but the new ad veers from that path.
___
ROMNEY: "This president has opened up no new markets for American goods around the world in his three years, even as European nations and China have opened up 44."
THE FACTS: Actually, Obama revived Bush-administration-era free-trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Columbia, all passed by Congress in October, in the most significant expansion of trade relations in nearly two decades. In particular, the agreement with South Korea is designed to break down barriers between the United States and the world's 15th-largest economy. The South Korea deal has the potential to create as many as 280,000 American jobs, according to a recent assessment by the staff of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and to boost exports by more than $12 billion. Obama also, on a recent trip to Asia, endorsed an Asia-Pacific free-trade pact that would also boost U.S. exports to Asia.
___
Associated Press writers Christopher S. Rugaber, Tom Raum and Steve Peoples contributed to this report.
How does 365 days (instead of 1 year) affect consumer decision making?Public release date: 17-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary-Ann Twist JCR@bus.wisc.edu 608-255-5582 University of Chicago Press Journals
How long it will take to bake a cake? Twenty-eight minutes or half an hour? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, most consumers would trust the 28-minute estimate, if it comes from a reliable source.
"Consumers' perception of the precision and reliability of quantitative product information looms large in their decision making," write authors Y. Charles Zhang and Norbert Schwarz (both University of Michigan). They found that consumers generally prefer more precise or "granular" information to larger units. In the case of the cake, most people perceive "28 minutes" to be more precise and therefore more reliable than "half an hour," which sounds a bit like rounding and could presumably mean a few minutes more or less. This observation has important implications for how consumers interpret quantitative information.
"Consumers perceive products as more likely to deliver on their promises when the promise is described in fine-grained rather than coarse terms and choose accordingly," the authors conclude. For example, "one year" and "12 months" refer to the same amount of time, but leave different impressions.
In one study, participants chose between GPS units: one was described as lasting "up to two hours" and another, which was heavier and more expensive, "up to three hours." "When the units' battery life was described in hours, only 26 percent picked the 'up to two hours' unitthey were concerned it might run out of power prematurely," the authors write. "But when the battery was described as 'up to 120 minutes,' more than twice as many consumers (57 percent) were happy to pick the same unit."
The granularity effect is only effective when consumers perceive the speaker to be competent and trustworthy. If they don't, the speaker's choice of words has no influence on consumer estimates.
These findings highlight that the choice of unit needs careful consideration in product descriptions and marketing communications. "A trustworthy and cooperative communicator should be as precise as possible but not more precise than warranted," the authors conclude.
###
Y. Charles Zhang and Norbert Schwarz. "How and Why One Year Differs from 365 Days: A Conversational Logic Analysis of Inferences from the Granularity of Quantitative Expressions." Journal of Consumer Research: August 2012 (published online October 7, 2011).
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How does 365 days (instead of 1 year) affect consumer decision making?Public release date: 17-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary-Ann Twist JCR@bus.wisc.edu 608-255-5582 University of Chicago Press Journals
How long it will take to bake a cake? Twenty-eight minutes or half an hour? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, most consumers would trust the 28-minute estimate, if it comes from a reliable source.
"Consumers' perception of the precision and reliability of quantitative product information looms large in their decision making," write authors Y. Charles Zhang and Norbert Schwarz (both University of Michigan). They found that consumers generally prefer more precise or "granular" information to larger units. In the case of the cake, most people perceive "28 minutes" to be more precise and therefore more reliable than "half an hour," which sounds a bit like rounding and could presumably mean a few minutes more or less. This observation has important implications for how consumers interpret quantitative information.
"Consumers perceive products as more likely to deliver on their promises when the promise is described in fine-grained rather than coarse terms and choose accordingly," the authors conclude. For example, "one year" and "12 months" refer to the same amount of time, but leave different impressions.
In one study, participants chose between GPS units: one was described as lasting "up to two hours" and another, which was heavier and more expensive, "up to three hours." "When the units' battery life was described in hours, only 26 percent picked the 'up to two hours' unitthey were concerned it might run out of power prematurely," the authors write. "But when the battery was described as 'up to 120 minutes,' more than twice as many consumers (57 percent) were happy to pick the same unit."
The granularity effect is only effective when consumers perceive the speaker to be competent and trustworthy. If they don't, the speaker's choice of words has no influence on consumer estimates.
These findings highlight that the choice of unit needs careful consideration in product descriptions and marketing communications. "A trustworthy and cooperative communicator should be as precise as possible but not more precise than warranted," the authors conclude.
###
Y. Charles Zhang and Norbert Schwarz. "How and Why One Year Differs from 365 Days: A Conversational Logic Analysis of Inferences from the Granularity of Quantitative Expressions." Journal of Consumer Research: August 2012 (published online October 7, 2011).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Pink Samsung Galaxy S II Goes Up For Pre-order In the UK goo.gl/fb/JgCYD 
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Public release date: 17-Jan-2012
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