When Good Men Do Nothing

I woke up with a question not too long ago: suppose I had done nothing in the VUFSA baseball league? Made no moves, offered no trades, elected to simply dance with the horsies that brung me? To solve this question, I went back to what the teams looked like on draft day and figured out how every team would have fared if they had kept the team they drafted, and the calculations yielded so many holes that it was barely worth doing. But, I had come that far, so I might as well tell you what I figured. There isn't much of a surprise in the conclusion: Eli simply fucking dominates us.

Am I drunk right now?

Let's review the laws and flaws. That rhymed.

1. Given the minimum games played requirement, it is theoretically sound to say one player, assuming he plays all 162 games, will occupy one position all year. Thus, I included players that were first drafted at each position and made according lineups for each team. This included players that were injured, sadly, such as Derrek Lee, Jonny Gomes and your mom, and that skewered results for the superb team that drafted all three of those players.

2. Given that the pitchers are held to minimum innings and not appearances, I included five starters that had the top inning count and three relievers per team, even though many clubs elected to sit on closers and some elected to draft more than three. It's a crude process, one that excludes such pitchers as Pedro Martinez, Scott Kazmir, Ben Sheets and Rich Harden. I realized later that it would have made sense to choose one and not the other -- most at-bats instead of first players drafted or first pitchers drafted instead of most innings. It was an error. Blow me. Drinks. I just couldn't justify forcing Tomke to include losers after he drafted Justin Verlander and Chien Mien-Wang in the final two rounds. I thought he just loved the Tigers and Asians, especially the young, exploitable kind. Turns out he was good at drafting.

3. Injuries greatly skew these results, as I already mentioned. Champ, who only drafted three closers, must use Eric Gagne and his two innings, which hammers his saves but really helps him in ERA and WHIP. Not only that, but I chose to average OBP, ERA and WHIP among those placed on the roster, rather than look up each individual player's numbers to calculate an accurate number. That's someone else's project. Blow me.

4. Since closers and starters obviously don't go the same number of innings, I crudely included three values for each starting pitcher in ERA and WHIP, one for each of the relievers, then divide by 18 (3 for each of five starters and one for each reliever). Obviously, there's so much rounding/averaging here that it's virtually moot. None of this will make sense unless you really, really think about it, so just forget about it.

5. Of course, this project is inherently flawed. Several players, especially catchers, have no prayers of actually lasting a full 162 games and those players get drafted with that understanding. Also, injuries are unforeseeable and players fill those gaps in the meantime. Mainly, I wanted to see who's original architecture worked the best.

6. I may have mis-added numerous times. Sorry bitches. Also, if you're curious to know which rosters I used, you can email me, especially if you think I added shit wrong. I can make corrections.

	Runs	Home Runs	RBIs	Stolen Bases	OBP	Wins	Saves	Strikeouts	ERA	WHIP
Eli	884	270	906	163	.382	73	105	1033	3.95	1.26
Andy	873	201	750	113	.360	75	109	1037	3.85	1.24
Drew	906	268	936	136	.374	77	51	770	4.53	1.34
JR	809	195	749	155	.366	79	73	964	3.84	1.25
Baron	865	231	793	133	.362	72	74	976	4.14	1.30
Ed	853	200	793	117	.352	73	106	984	4.14	1.32
Lincoln	817	222	773	93	.362	76	83	968	3.98	1.34
Stem	771	225	812	48	.362	70	65	965	4.02	1.25
Tomke	814	232	871	76	.348	93	64	903	4.16	1.34
Champ	853	206	816	114	.357	60	42	699	4.62	1.23

	Runs	Home Runs	RBIs	Stolen Bases	OBP	Wins	Saves	Strikeouts	ERA	WHIP	Total
Eli	9	10	9	10	10	4.5	8	9	8	6	83.5
Andy	8	3	2	4	4	6	10	10	9	9	65
Drew	10	9	10	8	8	8	2	2	2	2	61
JR	2	1	1	9	9	9	5	4	10	7.5	57.5
Baron	7	7	4.5	7	6	3	6	7	4.5	5	57
Ed	5.5	1	4.5	6	2	4.5	9	8	4.5	4	50
Lincoln	4	5	3	3	6	7	7	6	7	2	50
Stem	1	6	6	1	6	2	4	5	6	7.5	44.5
Tomke	3	8	8	2	1	10	3	3	3	2	43
Champ	5.5	4	7	5	3	1	1	1	1	10	38.5