JOHAN

Here's the simplest way to explain the impact of Johan Santana's trade to the Mets: when I saw announcement this afternoon, my Mets fan friends and I immediately started discussing partial season ticket packages that would guarantee us playoff seats. 

Mets fans are, understandably, a notoriously skeptical bunch. But I haven't talked to a single Mets fan who isn't stunned with excitement. This is awesome.

Did I mention my favorite football team is playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday? It's a good week.

T-shirt Designs

Got a bit bored today and started playing around with designing t-shirts. Here's my Spreadshirt shop - all the prices are as low as they'd let me go, so you're not putting any money in my pocket if you decide you like one and buy one. I think I like the Jersey one best so far.

Listen to Ryan Adams Shows Live Online

Go to www.littlemoonradio.com to stream shows from Ryan Adams' (notice how respectable people now do the s's thing? It bothers me, it's wrong) current west coast tour live as they happen. Listening currently to a ridiculous version of Off Broadway from Santa Barbara.

I love the internet.

Adrian Peterson's draft stock in 2008

Much like Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson is being talked about as a top 3 (some even say first overall) pick in 2008. As with Brady, I'm a bit skeptical, although after reviewing his first season, I'm less skeptical of him than of Brady.

First things first - I'm going to use a scoring system of 6 pts for a TD, and .1 point per yard rushing and receiving. Here's Peterson's stat line for the whole season.

Rush yards = 1341, Rush TD = 12
Receiving Yards = 268, Receiving TD = 1

That gets us a total of 238.9 points, good for 4th overall behind LT2, Westbrook, and Addai. When you take his per game average (238.9/14 games played = ~ 17 ppg), he jumps ahead of Addai. All in all, it was an impressive first season. But as an owner of Peterson, it felt a bit up and down. Recall that he had two 200 yd + games against Chicago and San Diego. Those games were certainly memorable performances, and created the legend of the Purple Jesus. In those two weeks, he totalled 90.6 points, which was 37% of his total.

That left 148.3 points for the other 12 games, an average of 12.4, which is less impressive. However, if he kept up a 12 point per game pace for a 16 game season, he'd end up with 197.73 points, which would actually get him to sixth this year (behind Jamal Lewis and ahead of Marion Barber). Pretty good. I also took a look at his Crank Score (explained here - http://www.fftoday.com/articles/waldman/gc_consistency.htm), which is basically a measure of how consistently a player is an elite player, a RB1, a RB2, or neither based on their weekly scores. In leagues that start 2 RBs, he moved from around 4th to 8th, depending on the number of teams in the league. But his company at the top included guys like Jamal Lewis (not much upside) and Ronnie Brown (injury concerns) who definitely aren't worth as much as AP in the draft next year (as an aside, Westbrook and LT2 blew everyone away in terms of consistency, with Addai close behind).

Still, I had the lingering sense that Peterson was boom or bust, a guy who would carry you to victory one week and leave you in the cold next week.

I decided to take a closer look at those other weeks to get a sense of how his whole season played out.

Week 1 - ATL - 103 rush, 60 rec, rec TD = 22.3
Week 2 - DET - 66 rush , 52 rec = 11.8
Week 3 - KC - 102 rush , 48 rec, rush TD = 21
Week 4 - GB - 112 rush, 6 rec = 11.8
Week 5 - BYE
Week 6 - CHI - 224 rush , 9 rec, 3 rush TD = 41.1
Week 7 - DAL - 63 rush, 12 rec, rush TD = 13.5
Week 8 - PHI - 70 rush = 7
Week 9 - SD - 296 rush, 19 rec, 3 Rush TD = 49.5
Week 10 - GB - 45 rush, 14 rec = 5.9
Week 11 - OAK - injured - [holy crap, imagine AP against this year's Oakland run D?]
Week 12 - NYG - injured
Week 13 - DET - 116 rush, 10 rec, 2 rush TD = 24.6
Week 14 - SF - 3 rush = .3
Week 15 - CHI - 78 rush, 17 rec, 2 rush TD = 21.5
Week 16 - WAS - 27 rush , 21 rec = 4.8
Week 17 - DEN - 36 rush = 3.6

What's notable is that for the first half of the season, he was pretty consistently a good play - only the 7 point game in Philly dipped below double digits. He had four such games in the second half, and most problematically, three of those games came in weeks 14, 16, and 17 - the playoffs. The SF game was an unmitigated disaster, and the Washington game is the one that stings for me because it killed me in my championship game.

Was this a case of the roookie hitting the "rookie wall"? Football Outsiders did some excellent research in Pro Football Prospectus 2007 disproving the "rookie wall" thoery. Indeed, I think AP's problems were caused mostly by lingering effects from his knee injury and the re-emergence of Chester Taylor. That brings up my two biggest concerns with drafting Peterson early.

First, the injury history is hard to ignore. He hasn't played a full season at the collegiate or pro level yet. Some of the collegiate injuries were broken bones, which don't tend to have lingering effects. But ligament damage is more problematic, even if it was only the LCL. Any owner thinking about drafting him early will have to consider their own personal willingness to take on injury risk.

Second, if Chester Taylor is still in the backfield, he will see some carries, and if he's the one who happens to bust off the long touchdown (see the SF game), that could make for a bad fantasy day for AP. Moreover, using Taylor may be necessary to keep Peterson healthy - in other words, a RBBC, at least when Peterson is banged up. Maybe you won't get burned in the playoffs next year, but is that a risk you want to take?

On the other hand, he was more consistent than I thought, and he obviously gives you more upside than anyone besides LT2 on any given week. He can break a huge, huge game, which is a pretty sweet characteristic in a top 5 pick.

So where does he fall? He's definitely behind LT2 for me. He'd be behind Westbrook for me as well, since Westbrook was just so consistent this year. He and Addai are very close for my taste, which would put him around the 3rd or 4th pick (since no QB should be taken that high, see Brady post below :)).

In PPR leagues, his value drops a bit - definitely behind Addai, and possibly behind Steven Jackson. This could change if he gets better as a blocker, allowing him to stay in on 3rd down more and get more pass targets. (As I mentioned Crank scores above, it's notable that this year in PPR leagues, he dropped in consistency to 12th, behind guys like Reggie Bush, who had mediocre overall season but got lots of targets).

One of the big question makrs for me in terms of AP's value, and one we won't have answered for a few months, will be who you can get coming back around in the 2nd. If you can get a steady RB2 in the second or third round (a Lewis or McGahee), Peterson might be worth taking above Addai and maybe even Westbrook, because you can balance his upside with a steadier guy, and simply hope he doesn't crash in the playoffs. Also, his injury risk becomes less of a concern if you're the type that loves to stockpile RBs, because you should have a decent backup for him anyway (a Taylor handcuff is intriguing, but would probably cost a very high pick since Taylor is a very good RB and everyone knows his value to the AP owner).

Bottom line: I don't think he's as bad a pick at the top of the draft as Brady, but he comes with some concerns that need to be weighed based on your league's drafting tendencies.

Rufus Wainwright in Jersey

Headed out last night to scenic New Brunswick, New Jersey to see Rufus Wainwright perform solo, book-ended by the NFL games (Packers-Seahawks in the Houlihan's in Penn Station, and then Pats-Jags on Tivoed delay).

The show was very good. I prefer Rufus playing solo over him with a band. While I love his arrangements, the key to the Rufus experience is his voice, which is showcased in solo shows. It's a bit hard to describe, but his voice has the power to grip a room and make everyone sit perfectly still so as to be properly attentive. It's captivating. "I'm Not Ready to Love" was a highlight, as well as the busting out of "Dinner at Eight," which I hadn't seen him play in a few years and was the holy shit moment of the night. He also pulled out 11:11, although he flubbed some of the best lyrics. That was symptomatic of the small problem with the show - he seemed a bit out of it (he said he had just gotten in from Aspen, and that he was adjusting from the altitude) and wasn't quite as sharp as he is at his best. Still worth the trip to Jersey.

Funny moment at the end - the show ended right at 10:30, and there was a 10:34 train out of New Brunswick. I and half a dozen other desperate New Yorkers decided to spring the five blocks to the train station, making the train with about 30 seconds to spare. Never underestimate the desperation of New Yorkers to get out of Jersey.

RB Injuries

Anecdotally, it felt like this year was a terrible one in terms of RB injuries. It seemed like none of the top RBs, save Tomlinson, were guys you could start every week without at least keeping close track of the waiver wire. Of course, this worked to the advantage of those who loved the waiver wire: not only did new, effective starters frequently emerge, but frustrated owners sometimes dumped quality players (I was able to pick up Brandon Jacobs in multiple leagues). But was this really a particularly bad season?

I decided to take a look at games missed by the top RBs20 and compare them to the results from the last five years, as found in David Dorey’s book Fantasy Football: The Next Level. Since he looked at the top 20 Running Backs based on ADP, I did the same to be consistent.

The results were interesting.

Year Games Lost Number of Players Missing Games
2002 19 8
2003 49 9
2004 65 11
2005 51 10
2006 35 9
2007 56 15

So, there weren’t a uniquely large number of games missed this year; however, there were a uniquely large number of plays affected. Many of them (Alexander, Rudi Johnson, Henry) did not miss many games but spent several games being on the field but ineffective. Moreover, these RBs were often on the injury report, forcing owners to constantly sweat out game time decisions and perhaps leading to a perception of larger injury loss.

Also, I cut off that table at the top 20 for easy comparison, but here were the games missed of players 21-26, guys who were often drafted as starters. It totals another 40 games lost.

21) McAllister 13
22) Lynch 3
23) Peterson (Min) 2
24) C. Williams 12
25) Barber 0
26) Green 10

What does all of this mean? Some will see it as reason to move away from drafting running backs early, but I’m not sure that’s the right analysis. As the table shows, the last big year for RB injuries was 2004. That year, much like this one, QBs dominated the top scorers list, and some argued that fantasy football was moving from a RB dominated game to a QB dominated. Of course, the demise of the RB was greatly exaggerated.

More importantly, even if the increase in QB scoring continues, that doesn’t necessarily mean QBs should be drafted early – in fact, it encourages waiting because a good QB can be found later in the draft. Top RBs are still hard to find late in the draft. Some will point to the fact that Earnest Graham and Ryan Grant could be found on the waiver wire this year to suggest that starting RBs can be found later in the draft, too. But while this year wasn’t a historic one for injuries, it was on the high side. If RB injuries trend back downwards, those waiting to find starters on waivers may not find them. A dominant, healthy RB1 is still the holy grail, which is one reason why the guy at the top of drafts this year was so valuable – here’s the list of the top 20 with the number of games each missed, and note the number next to LDT’s name.

1) Tomlinson 0
2) S. Jackson 4
3) Larry Johnson 8
4) Gore 1
5) Alexander 3
6) Addai 1
7) Westbrook 1
8) Parker 1
9) Bush 4
10) Rudi Johnson 5
11) Maroney 3
12) Henry 5
13) McGahee 1
14) Jones-Drew 0
15) R. Brown 9
16) Edge James 0
17) Benson 5
18) Portis 0
19) T. Jones 0
20) Jacobs 5

Insane night this evening, as I saw two great bands. It occurs to me I should have posted this before the shows, so that those of you who were interested could check them out, but uh... maybe you can see them next time they come around? And buy their albums in the meantime if you like what you hear?

The first was Fooling April, a band my buddy Joe used to book for shows when he was promoting during college. They remind me of Ben Folds, maybe circa the Rockin' the Suburbs album. Good stuff.

Where to find them: myspace.com/fa

Recommended: Breaking the Skin, The Way Back Down

Then we headed to Brooklyn to see Chin Chin, a band I booked in college (back in the day...) and one of the best party bands around. Their sound is impossible to describe - it's certainly music to dance to, but it incorporates elements of rock (the sweet guitar and drums), jazz (the ridiculous horn section), and even some new wave synths. The show was absolutely incredible. I'm not much of a dancer, but yeah... it was on.

Where to find them: myspace.com/chinchinnyc

Recommended: Appetite, Miami

Book Recommendation

A plug for the best book I've read so far on my winter break from law school - Todd Gallagher's brilliant tome, "Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan." It's an exploration of the great questions in sports - would a fat goalie be dominant in hockey? Would a bunch of midgets be a great lineup in baseball, because it'd be impossible to throw strikes to them? How many tough men could Mike Tyson beat in a row? It's funny, but also quite well-researched (almost shockingly so).

As a bonus, the author is a good dude. I saw him speak at the Gelf's Varsity Letters night in December, and since he was hilarious, I bought the book and asked him to sign it. He was so happy to have someone buy the book (the publisher apparently has not been doing heavy publicity), that he a) signed the book, "Chris, you are better than the troops at Normandy for buying my book", and b) bought me and a couple of other attendees beers and chatted with us about sports for about an hour, answering all my questions about what Mike Tyson was really like (since he'd tried to put on a PPV event with Tyson fighting tough men). Plus, that chat ended up with me meeting Chuck Klosterman, so I owe the guy one.

Buy the book here.

Tom Brady – Top 5 pick in 2008?

Let me begin by saying that I was a proud Tom Brady owner this season. I drafted him in the 2nd round of a 14 team league and then rode him to a 13-0 regular season and survived the week 15 disaster, only to lose in the championship game (thanks to Purple Jesus – more on him next week).

Now, was I a psychic? No. I had a good feeling about Brady this year, especially since the league I drafted him has a point per completion and a penalty for incompletions – he generally has had a good completions percentage and was getting a bunch of new targets. But I had no idea he would break Manning’s record, or complete almost 69% of his passes, including nearly 80% in the first month. (Take a look at his September and October stats - I mean, holy shit! 20:1 TD:INT ration in October!) No one did. And this is what made him such a valuable player to have – you could get him in 2nd or 3rd round, having already taken a top back. If you hit with your top pick, you were golden with Brady (in the league discussed above, I got Westbrook in the first round).

But now, everyone and their brother is pegging Brady as a top of the first round player next year. Implicit in these suggestions is that Brady will be a dominant QB next year, with at least some significant separation between him and the rest of the field. Is he going to be a good value in that slot?

I think we can all agree that all bets are off if Randy Moss leaves New England. That would very radically change Brady’s set of options and would lead most people to temper their expectations for him. But, for our analysis, let’s assume Moss does return, and the offense next year looks pretty similar to the one from this year. What sort of season can we expect from Brady next year?

There’s an obvious analogue to Brady’s 2007 season – Manning’s 2004 season in which he set the record. In that year, Manning threw for 49 TDs, 10 Ints, and 4557 yards. How did he follow up that year? 28 TDs, 10 Ints, 3747 yards. Of course, Manning rested for most of the last two games that year, but that’s likely for Brady as well – the only reason he didn’t sit this year is because of the undefeated season and the chase for Manning’s record. But even if Manning had played the last two games, and we grant him his average output for them, he ends up with 32 TDs – a very good year, but not head and shoulders above the rest of the QB pack. In fact, Manning ranked third that year, behind Carson Palmer and a guy named Tom Brady.

Why would this happen? First, regression to the mean. Brady played at what was probably the absolute peak of his skills this year. It’s likely that he’ll play at a somewhat lower level next year, albeit still a very high one. Moreover, teams will have had a full summer to analyze the Pats passing offense, and will be keyed in to stop it next year. Bill Belichick and his coordinators are smart men – when they see teams overcompensating to stop the pass, they’ll call runs more often than they did this year, cutting into Brady’s passing stats.

Moreover, think about what taking Brady at the top of the first round does to a team’s draft. Let’s say you select Brady 3rd overall in a 12 team draft. Your team’s next pick is the 22nd pick. By that point, the top 15 or so running backs and many of the top 10 receivers will be gone. To be successful, you’d have to get very lucky on some running back flyers in the middle rounds, or catch lightning in a bottle off the waiver wire (which is pretty hard to do in years which the top 10 backs stay healthy – more on RB injuries next week). If Brady plays at a high level, but not a godly record breaking level, he’ll perform about as well as many QBs you could take in the sixth round or later. Which would you rather have – Brady and a 6th round RB, or Brian Westbrook and a 6th round QB?

Don’t agree? Let’s take a look at the top 12 QBs from this year, and let’s see where you could have drafted them.

I’m using Yahoo standard scoring (25 yards/point, TD – 4 points, INT - -1 point), and going off actual points accumulated (which means the scores may be lower than total stats because there’s no fractional scoring). ADP ranks come from myfantasyleague.com, and the drafts cover the last two weeks before the season.

QB Rank, Pts, ADP Rank, ADP #
1) Brady 386, QB4, 22.06
2) Romo 302, QB8, 56.69
3) P. Manning 282, QB1, 7.67
4) Brees 262, QB3, 21.69
4) Anderson 262, Not drafted
6) Roethlisberger 259, QB14, 88.52
7) Favre 252, QB16, 106.94
8) Hasselbeck 243, QB11, 62.73
9) Palmer 241, QB2, 18.42
10) Warner 216, Not drafted
11) Cutler 212, QB13, 86.77
12) McNabb 204, QB6, 35.38

This suggests you could get a very good starting QB very late in the draft. Reviewing my drafts from this year, I was able to snag Roethlisberger very late in several drafts, as early as the 10th round and as late as the 13th round. In one draft, I got Favre in the 11th and Ben in the 13th.

Or, look at my example above of combining a 6th round QB with Brian Westbrook. If you took a QB in the 6th round this year, you might have taken Tony Romo. A team with Romo and Westbrook this year was a very good one.

For reference, here’s the list of the top 12 in ADP, followed by how well they did.

QB ADP, Pts Rank, Pts
1) P. Manning 7.67, QB3, 282
2) Palmer 18.42, QB9, 241
3) Brees 21.69, QB4, 262
4) Brady 22.06, QB1, 386
5) Bulger 30.38, QB22, 115
6) McNabb 35.38, QB12, 204
7) Young 54.73, QB17, 159
8) Romo 56.69, QB2, 302
9) Rivers 57.65, QB15, 183
10) Kitna 58.68, QB13, 195
11) Hasselbeck 62.73, QB8, 243
12) Leinart 73.08, QB52, 31

Yeah, taking a top 10 Quarterback did not work out so great this year.

So where does Brady belong? I think he belongs in the back of the first round, in Peyton Manning territory. I’d select him at the point where I felt there was a drop in talent at RB. Manning as a 9th or 10th pick can be very effective, since he’s one of the most consistent QBs you can find and never seems to get hurt. Plus, since you’re taking him late, you can grab a quality RB with your 2nd round pick, mitigating the damage (although I won a 10 team league this year taking Manning at 9th, and then Maroney in the 2nd, so maybe you don’t even need to do that).

Thoughts and comments welcome and appreciated.

Hey There, and a Note on the Name

The Yemen Deli is where I ate an unhealthy percentage of my meals from September 06 until August 07. It had not only the cheapest sandwiches you can find in New York City ($3 for a foot long sub!) but also some of the best.  Honestly, it's one of my favorite places in Brooklyn.

It is also the name of a championship fantasy football team from the recently concluded season. And so it makes a perfect name for the blog - it makes me think of both delicious food and victory (and of course, one of the best things about fantasy football is EXACTLY that you can claim victory while eating a sub).

I'll start with some thoughts on the 2007 fantasy football season (and a look ahead to 08), and intersperse them with some musings on music and media.

Concluding with my favorite toast: "To greatness!"