David Riske

One roster-transaction update for you guys to make note of. I forgot that the Gamblers picked up RP-David Riske on waivers last Saturday. So I added him to the Gamblers roster. That means he is NO LONGER on the Waiver Wire. 

 

By the way... This goes out to everyone. If you get a player off the Waiver Wire or via the FAD, please make sure to list what you're doing with him as part of your Weekly Roster Moves email that you send me on Monday. People forget to do that sometimes. While I usually catch these omissions by reviewing the FAD and Waiver roundup emails, sometimes they slip by. Including them in your weekly roster moves will ensure that they don't escape my sight. Thanks. 

 

Kennesaw Mountain BigHorn
HARL Commissioner

Hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah... the Sevy Rhinos aren't in last place anymore! After a three week slumber, the Horned Ones finally woke up and rampaged ahead with a turbocharged performance during Week-4 of the regular season. Their 12 point gain jumped them all the way up to 7th place. What's more, they're now only 4 points removed from a playoff spot. My faith in humanity (and baseball) has been restored.

Meanwhile at the top of the standings... The Assassins one-week hold on 1st Place didn't last, as the killers suffered a sudden 16-point drop. Consequently, they were passed by the Mudhens and Cobras. Clucky rises again! But our fine feathered friend can't get too comfortable, because those sneaky spitting cobras are poised to strike at their heels, lurking a mere 1.37 points behind the leader.

Here's how things sit with 4 weeks worth of statistics in the books:

Things look pretty tight don't they? Less than 10 points separate the 3rd place Assassins from the 8th place Maygamers. That's close.

And while it sucks to be trolling around the sub-basement of the standings, the Jokers and Lemmings can take comfort in my 1-week rise up the HARL standings as proof positive that there's still plenty of room for movement at this early stage of the season. If the Rhinos can do it, well then, why can't they?

As April comes to a close, I thought now would be a good time to examine our first Team Points Graph of the 2008 season. Remember, if your colored bars are rising over time, your team is headed in the right direction (up the point standings). For instance, the Cobras have been making steady gains since the first stat period.

Conversely, if your colored bars are decreasing over time, your team is in a downward spiral points-wise. The Maygamers are an example of this, bleeding off points since they sat atop the standings after Week-1.

Sorry for the smallish graphic, but you can't post a full-sized screen shot here due to the limited layout space.


I'm beat and that's all I feel like writing for now. I'm thinking about starting to post snippets of fun stuff (like stats analysis, quirky comments, etc.) later in the week, rather than writing one big news-post every Tuesday Night. Spreading things out into smaller chunks may feel like less of a burden for me, while keeping the content of the blog fresh. We'll see how things go.

As always, your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

FAD Results: April 27

HARL FAD Results for April 27:

1. JERRY HAIRSTON    OF-CIN  1.90  JOKERS    (TOP=2.10, 2ND=1.85 STAMPEDERS)
2. ESTEBAN LOAIZA    SP-LA    .05  LEMMINGS  (TOP=1.05, 2ND=NONE)
3. GREG DOBBS        3B-PHI   .05  RHINOS    (TOP= .45, 2ND=NONE)
4. RAUL CASANOVA      C-NYM   .05  RHINOS    (TOP= .40, 2ND=NONE) 
5. DARIN ERSTAD      OF-HOU   .15  MAYGAMERS (TOP= .30, 2ND= .10 STAMPEDERS) 
6. WIL NIEVES         C-WAS   .05  GAMBLERS  (TOP= .25, 2ND=NONE)
7. MIKE O'CONNOR     SP-WAS   .05  MAYGAMERS (TOP= .20, 2ND=NONE) 
8. JUSTIN HUBER      OF-SD    .05  STAMPEDERS TOP= .10, 2ND=NONE) 

Holy smokes! A buck ninety for Jerry Hairston? Stop the insanity!!! 

 

Kennesaw Mountain BigHorn
HARL Commissioner

 

Waiver Claims: April 26

Only one waiver claim yesterday:

1. David Riske        RP-MIL    GAMBLERS

So let it be written...

New Week, New Leader

Uh oh, another one bites the dust!

Sneaky little bastards! Those cloaked killers, the Abingdon Assassins, have sliced and diced their way into 1st Place, cutting down all who oppose them in the process. Dougie Fresh's boys have put a disappointing 2007 season behind them and are making a statement that this year they'll be a team to be reckoned with.

Three weeks into the season and we've had 3 different teams leading the pack. This has all the early earmarks of a very wild year in HARL country.

To be honest, I can see more lead changes in the rotisserie crystal ball which I keep hidden in a secret chamber deep within the bowels of HARL Central. Why do I say that?

Well, for starters, just look at the Week #3 HARL standings:

While the Assassins and Mudhens have gotten off to fast starts, there are a whole bunch of teams huddled tightly together in the 70-point band. It would only take a hot week or two for the 9th place Brewskis to vault themselves all the way up to 3rd place. Things may settle down a bit standings-wise in another 2-3 weeks, but right now, things are in a huge state of flux. Everyone is still legitimately in the race, although the Lemmings and Rhinos need to bounce back soon because they're off to a sucky start.

I honestly can't recall the last time I found my beloved Sevy Rhinos in last place. I'm sure that the rest of you are cheering. I mean really, who doesn't want to beat the hell out of the team with the most HARL championships to its credit? But guys, I'm not giving up! I actually like my team this year. But jeez, the combination of poor starts from several key players (Francis, Gorzelanny, and Valverde on the pitching side, and Weeks, Beltran, and Andruw Jones on the hitting side), and some injuries woes (J-Roll, Matsui, Wigginton, zero stats from my 2nd Catcher for 3 weeks, and a back-half of the rotation that's been DL bound for a good chunk of the early season), and you have a recipe for a crap start. The horned ones really need to right the pitching ship, because 18 points just ain't gonna cut it.

Another thing that I find fascinating about the teams so far, is the great imbalance between batting and pitching points for most teams. The Gamblers and Grillers seem nicely balanced in the early going. The Maygamers, while tilted towards the offensive side of the ledger, are not grossly imbalanced. But every other HARL team has a difference of 14 or more points between its Batting and Pitching numbers. That can only mean two things: (1) lots of free agent action, and (2) much more trading activity to remedy these weaknesses. At least that seems logical. Whether our more conservative owners actually pull the trigger on deals or not remains to be seen.

All I know is there ain't no way in Hell that I'm finishing dead LAST! And you can suck that down, monkey boy!

HARL FAD Results: April 20

There was much less FAD activity this week as compared to last week. But perhaps that's because the free agent talent was thinned out tremendously after last week's 20-player cherry picking bonanza? Here's who was taken this Sunday:

1. CLINT BARMES    SS/2B-COL  .15  RHINOS     (TOP=2.00, 2ND= .10 STAMPEDERS)
2. NELSON FIGUEROA    SP-NYM  .35  STAMPEDERS (TOP=2.00, 2ND= .30 GAMBLERS)
3. NORRIS HOPPER      OF-CIN  .55  MAYGAMERS  (TOP=1.00, 2ND= .50 STAMPEDERS)
4. JOHN LANNAN        SP-WAS  .60  STAMPEDERS (TOP= .85, 2ND= .55 RHINOS)
5. ODALIS PEREZ       SP-WAS  .05  RHINOS     (TOP= .75, 2ND=NONE)
6. KIP WELLS           P-COL  .60  MAYGAMERS  (TOP= .60, 2ND= .55 GRILLERS)
7. GUILLERMO MOTA     RP-MIL  .05  GAMBLERS   (TOP= .55, 2ND=NONE)
8. MIKE GONZALEZ      RP-ATL  .05  GRILLERS   (TOP= .50, 2ND=NONE)
9. DOUG BROCAIL       RP-HOU  .05  GAMBLERS   (TOP= .45, 2ND=NONE) 
10. JASON LARUE         C-STL  .05  RHINOS     (TOP= .35, 2ND=NONE) 
11. GREG GOLSON        OF-PHI  .05  GAMBLERS   (TOP= .35, 2ND=NONE) 
12. RICKY NOLASCO      SP-FLA  .05  GRILLERS   (TOP= .15, 2ND=NONE) 
13. ALEXIS GOMEZ       OF-FLA  .05  STAMPEDERS (TOP= .05, 2ND=NONE)

Kennesaw Mountain BigHorn
HARL Commissioner
   

HARL -- Waiver Claims (APR 19)

As expected, several people put in claims for Jon Rauch (RP-WAS) this week. He could very well be the new closer for Washington if Chad Cordero's injury is worse than expected or Cordero gets traded (which has been rumoured lately). 

 

WAIVER CLAIMS: 4/19

1. JON RAUCH                RP-WAS     LEMMINGS
2. JEREMY AFFELDT       RP-CIN       JOKERS

That's all she wrote.

Revenge of Clucky

Well guys, it appears that you just can't keep Clucky down!

Rising from the ashes of a disappointing September, which put a damper on an otherwise fantastic 2007 HARL season, the Mudhens have taken over 1st Place after 2 weeks of the baseball season. Can they ride the momentum all the way to the playoffs? Umm, to be frank, I HAVE NO FRIGGIN IDEA! Two weeks does not a season make.

Plus, I haven't had the free time to sit down and run my top secret post-draft team projections yet using Rhino Baseball.

In my view, April is much like September from a roster management perspective. You go ahead and take care of your injuries and obvious roster problems and tweak here & there, but April is mostly an observation month. You can't afford to panic and make rash decisions about your key players.

For instance, two weeks of stats tells me that Shawn Chacon is far better than Jeff Francis right now. Anyone with 2 rotisserie-branded brain cells to rub together knows better. Chacon is back of the rotation roster filler, while Francis is a top-3 member of most fantasy starting staffs. Jeff Keppinger is not going to outproduce Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins. For countless players, their stats are a mirage right now. Water will reach it's own level. Patience grasshopper.... patience.

Still, it's frustrating to be way down in 10th place. After my pitching was totally torched last week to the tune of a 7.71 ERA and 1.75 WHIP, I figured that I'd be bringing up the rear for sure. But Richie Lemming is keeping me company and is sitting in 11th place. Meanwhile, our damn older brothers (Joey and Mike) are kicking our asses. But we shall have our day! The season is young!

Anyway... enough babbling. Here are this week's snapshot standings:

---

Waiver Wire

I'm pretty sure that everyone knows how the Waiver Wire process works. But to help out Mayer, I'll say a few words about it here to reinforce how everything works.

Whenever a HARL team waives (drops) a player from its roster, that player immediately goes on the Waiver Wire. These players can be picked up for FREE every SATURDAY night by whoever claims them. But there are rules in place regarding how picks are submitted and awarded, how many guys you can claim, and how long a player stays on the wire.

1. Each HARL team may put in as many claims as it wants on waiver players (e.g. you could put in claims for 5 different guys), but can only acquire ONE (1) player off the waiver wire during any given week. So if you put in multiple claims, you must rank them from 1 to X in the order that you most want those players.
   
2. Claims are awarded based on the REVERSE ORDER of the current HARL standings. So if two teams put in a claim for the same player, the one ranked lowest in the standings gets that player.
   
3. You may submit a claim for a player that YOUR TEAM DROPPED. When awarding players in that case, you can only acquire that player if no other team in the league claims that player.
   
4. It costs NOTHING to claim a player off waivers.
   
5. The Salary of a player claimed off the waiver wire is 25 cents and his Contract Status is set at MY2.
   
6. If a player goes unclaimed during his 1st week on the waiver wire, he remains there for a 2nd week. If he remains unclaimed after the second week, he returns to the Free Agent Pool.
   
7. Waiver Claims must be submitted to the league commissioner via email by 8 PM on Saturday Night.

And that's the scoop. If you want to see who is on Waivers this week, check the online report or PSR report (http://www.rhinosoftware.com/harl/linkrpts.htm) starting with the word waive.

Until next week... Sayonara!

HARL FAD Results for 4/13

HARL FAD Results: April 13

1. FRED LEWIS       OF-SF  1.90  COBRAS    (2.00, 2ND=1.85 GAMBLERS)
2. KEVIN CORREIA    SP-SF  1.30  COBRAS    (1.50, 2ND=1.25 ASSASSINS)
3. GEOFF BLUM      UTL-HOU  .60  GRILLERS  (1.25, 2ND= .55 LEMMINGS)
4. JOHN BOWKER      OF-SF   .85  GRILLERS  (1.25, 2ND= .80 LEMMINGS) 
5. CLA MEREDITH     RP-SD   .05  ASSASSINS (1.20, 2ND=NONE)
6. CHRIS SAMPSON    SP-HOU  .50  ASSASSINS (1.15, 2ND= .45 BREWSKIS) 
7. EDGAR GONZALEZ   SP-ARZ  .05  ASSASSINS (1.05, 2ND=NONE) 
8. BRIAN BARTON     OF-STL  .60  BREWSKIS  (.95,  2ND= .55 GAMBLERS) 
9. PETER MOYLAN     RP-ATL  .70  RHINOS    (.90,  2ND= .65 GAMBLERS) 
10. PAUL BAKO         C-CIN  .05  COBRAS    (.80,  2ND=NONE) 
11. JOHN GRABOW      RP-PIT  .15  GAMBLERS  (.60,  2ND= .10 LEMMINGS) 
12. JOHN LIEBER      SP-CHC  .45  BREWSKIS  (.45,  2ND= .45 MAYGAMERS) 
13. SO TAGUCHI       OF-PHI  .05  BREWSKIS  (.50,  2ND=NONE) 
14. DUANER SANCHEZ   RP-NYM  .05  RHINOS    (.40,  2ND=NONE) 
15. BURKE BADENHOP   SP-FLA  .05  MAYGAMERS (.40,  2ND=NONE) 
16. ALEX GONZALEZ    SS-CIN  .10  RHINOS    (.35,  2ND= .05 GAMBLERS) 
17. D. MIENTKIEWICZ  1B-PIT  .05  LEMMINGS  (.30,  2ND=NONE) 
18. TONY GWYNN JR    OF-MIL  .05  GRILLERS  (.25,  2ND=NONE) 
19. JACK TASCHNER    RP-SF   .05  LEMMINGS  (.05,  2ND=NONE)
20. JOSH FOGG        SP-CIN  .05  GAMBLERS  (.05,  2ND=NONE)

Wow! Lotsa picks this week. Way to start the first FAD of the year off with a bang! 

             

FAD Refresher

For the sake of Mayer (our new team owner) and those forgetful souls, I wanted to take a moment to provide a quick little refresher about our weekly FAD (Free Agent Draft) process.

 

What is the FAD?

 

The FAD is our weekly Free Agent Draft. The purpose of the FAD is to enable HARL teams to pickup new players from the current free agent pool of unowned players. These players can be added to your Reserve List, Disabled List (if they're injured and on the MLB disabled list), or inserted into your Active Roster to replace another player who you wish to reserve, DL, trade, or waive.

 

When is the FAD held?

 

The FAD is held every SUNDAY night at 8 PM. The FAD is NOT a live event. Rather, FAD Picks are submitted to the commissioner (me) via email by the HARL team owners. Your picks remain confidential until I process the FAD Results on Sunday Night. 

 

How does the FAD work? 

 

Each week, you may attempt to acquire up to 3 free agents during the FAD. You do this by making a pick-list (or multiple lists -- up to 3 of them) of players that you want to acquire. Beside the name of each player on your picklist, you write a BID PRICE. This bid is the highest price you are willing to pay to acquire that free agent player.

 

Players on your picklist must be ranked in the order that you want them, and players must be ordered from the HIGHEST BID to the LOWEST BID. For example, here's a sample list: 

 

LIST-A (want 1 hitter from this list)

1. Fred Lewis       OF-SF   .75  
2. Darren Erstad    OF-HOU  .55
3. Aaron Miles      2B-STL  .45 
4. Jose Cruz        OF-HOU  .40
5. Mike Fontenot    2B-CHC  .35
6. Damian Easley    2B-NYM  .25    
7. Josh Phelps      1B-STL  .05       

During the FAD process, you will be awarded the first player on your list for which you have the highest bid price.

 

If you want multiple players from your pick list, you must specify how many you want (1, 2, or 3). If you fail to specify how many players you want from a list, the commissioner will assume that you only want 1 player.

 

If you want, you may submit multiple picklists. For instance, if you wanted an Outfielder first and then a 2B next, you could submit two lists as in the following example:

 

LIST-A (want 1 OF from this list)

1. Fred Lewis       OF-SF   .75  
2. Darren Erstad    OF-HOU  .55
3. Jose Cruz        OF-HOU  .40
4. Nyjer Morgan     OF-PIT  .40     

LIST-B (want 1 2B from this list)

1. Aaron Miles      2B-STL  .40
2. Mike Fontenot    2B-CHC  .35
3. Damian Easley    2B-NYM  .25            

The commissioner will process LIST-A first. Once you get a player from LIST-A, or run out picks because all those players have already been taken by other bidders, the commissioner will then move on to your LIST-B.

 

How Bid Prices work?

 

The final sale price of a player taken in the FAD works much like eBay. The person who submitted the HIGHEST BID for a given drafted player wins that player. The final sale price is 5 cents higher than the bid of the runnerup bidder. For instance, if the three people bid on Aaron Miles with bids of 55, 40, and 20 cents, Miles would go to the person who bid 55 cents, and his final sale price would be 45 cents (5 cents more than the 2nd highest bidder). 

 

There are 2 special cases:

• If two people TIE on the high bid on a given player, the HARL team ranked lower in the current standings wins the bid. And in this case, the final sale price of the player simply equals the high bid price.  
• If you have the high bid on a given player and nobody else bid on that player, you get him for a nickel.

When are FAD Results published?

 

In most cases, the weekly FAD results are published late on Sunday Night. In rare cases, such as when I'm out-of-town, away on vacation, or tied up with an emergency, results will be posted on Monday morning. Trust me, I do my best to get the results out on Sundays if at all possible, because I'm typically very very busy on Monday mornings. 

 

And that's the scoop. If you need more information about the FADs, please refer to the current HARL Rulebook.

 

Unusual Statistics

Mayer recently asked me a good question about some of the more unusual statistics that are carried on our weekly HARL player and team stats reports such as OPS, RBR, PSP, BAA, XERA, etc.

 

I thought this would serve as a nice little blog post for everyone to enjoy.

 

None of these oddball stat categories count as Scoring Categories in our league. They're just included on the stat reports for analysis' sake. They're something else to look at and chew on when you evaluate players and HARL teams.

 

Here's what they mean:

 

OPS = On-Base Plus Slugging

    The formula simply adds a player's/team's On-Base Average to its Slugging Percentage

    to get an overall value. It's a nice overall indicator of hitting quality since it combines ability

    to get on base with ability to hit for power/extra-bases.

 

SEC = Secondary Average

    The formula is (total_bases - hits + bases_on_balls + stolen_bases) / at_bats  

    A Bill James creation which basically looks at a batter's ability to take extra bases 

    as a function of At Bats. A good way to identify players who hit for power, steal, and walk a lot.

 

RBR = Roto Batter Rating

    This is a rotisserie baseball Points Rating for batters devised by me. 

    It's a good overall indicator of a player's value. The formula is fairly complex: 

    runs_scored + runs_batted_in + (home_runs * 3) + (stolen_bases * 3) +

    (((at_bats + bases_on_balls) / 625) * (on_base_average - .300) * 1000)

 

PSP = Power/Speed Points

    This is a simple Points Rating for batters also devised by me used to identify players

    with a good mix of Power/Speed. 

    The formula is ((home_runs + stolen_bases) * 3) + runs_batted_in + runs_scored  

 

BAA = Batting Average Against

    This Ron Shandler formula is an approximation of how well opposing batters hit a given pitcher

    (sometimes also called Opponent's Batting Avge).  

    The formula is hits_allowed / ((innings_pitched * 2.82) + hits_allowed)  

 

QSR = Quality Start Ratio

    The proportion of a pitcher's Quality Starts to all the games he has Started this season.

    The formula is quality_starts / games_started 

 

XERA = Expected ERA

    This is also a formula used by Bill James and Ron Shandler.

    It approximates what a pitcher's ERA should be based on his base performance indicators.

    So a pitcher with a lower XERA than his actual ERA has been pitching in some bad luck.

    The formula is very complex: (.575 * hits_allowed / innings_pitched * 9)

    + (.94 * homers_allowed / innings_pitched * 9) + (.28 * walks / innings_pitched * 9)

     - (.01 * strikeouts / innings_pitched * 9) - 2.77 

 

RPR = Roto Pitcher Rating

    This is a rotisserie baseball Points Rating for pitchers devised by me. 

    It's a good overall indicator of a pitcher's value. The formula is fairly complex:

    (strikeouts + (wins * 10) + (saves * 5) + (innings_pitched / 1.33) + 

    ((4.50 - earned_run_average) * (innings_pitched / 200) * 100) +

    ((1.50 - pitching_ratio) * (innings_pitched / 200) * 500)) * 0.5    

 

So there you have it. These are neat little stats categories for "looking outside the box" and analyzing players and fantasy teams using other indicators that aren't as obvious as the basic 12 stats we use for scoring purposes.

 

The Bearded Pirate is Riding High!

By now, most of you know that tired old rotisserie mantra that falls from the lips of wily veteran fantasy baseball players the world over: It's Still Early.

One look at my Rhinos horrendous pitching stats from Week-1 and you can be sure that I'm going to be reciting that classic phrase a helluva lot. Someone has to start off slow, and that someone appears to be me right now (along with Joker Jack).

Conversely, someone usually starts off red hot, and no team was better in Week-1 than the Maygamers. Yes guys, that's an expansion team in 1st Place!

HARL's gray bearded elder and diehard Pittsburgh Pirates lover, Mayer Foner, is certainly riding a wave of statistical goodness right now.

Xavier Nady was just named player of the week. Nate McLouth is smoking hot. Jeff Keppinger is hitting so well that he may very well become a super-sub who gets 350-400 ABs playing a variety of positions this season. Johnny Cueto had a dominant pitching debut, and 4 different guys in the bullpen registered Saves in Week-1. Welcome back to HARL Mayer.

Here's the Reader's Digest bite-sized look at the current standings:

What can you tell from these standings? To be honest, I never put much weight into these things until 4 or 5 weeks of the season have passed. Once you have a bigger sample size of stats, you have a much better idea of who has a good team and who might struggle. Still, I'd much rather be near the top of the standings than the bottom. Nobody can takes those good "counting stats" (HR, RBI, SB, Wins, Saves, K, etc.) away from you.

It's pretty obvious that the Stampeders and Lemmings need to start hitting better, and the Rhinos need to starting hurling some gems. Aside from that, talk to me in a few weeks.


GETTING WEBBY

I fooled around with a bunch of reports tonight, in an effort to see what kind of work I would need to do to for our fledgling HARL Central reports website. I ended up creating a whole bunch of reports, and I did a LOT of editing to make things look prettier. A few observations are worth sharing:

• Generating HTML reports from Rhino Baseball isn't very hard or time consuming for me, so that's a major plus.
• Unfortunately, the HTML reports in their standard format are pretty homely looking when compared to their much more colorful PSR brethren. I may put some tweaks into the baseball software over the summer to reduce the default font-size of HTML reports (because the reports packed with lots of data seem too wide to fit comfortably on most screens). There are several basic reports (eg: Rosters, Team Stats, Team Scores) that look fairly decent as-is. I still ended up doing tweaks to a bunch of them, just to add color here and there and cut off excess/straggling info. Call me anal retentive.
• I need to avoid getting EDITING HAPPY. Editing the HTML reports is very time consuming. I already do enough work for HARL, so there's no way I'm adding another 2-3 hours of work to my plate each week to duplicate a bunch of PSR reports online. So I'm going to stick with the key reports on Stat Night, and perhaps add in some bonus reports during "off-hours" throughout the weeks. We'll see how it goes.
• Without a shred of doubt in my mind, PSR reports still kick the poop out of HTML reports. Not only do the PSR reports look better, but you can sort, filter, and search them in the Rhino Viewer. You cannot do that with static HTML reports; you can only view them. So don't plan on dumping the Viewer, unless you're just too plain lazy to analyze any stats/ratings and simply want to see the quick & dirty stuff (standings, rosters, waivers) each week.
• Scrolling thru HTML (web page) reports online can be dicey when the reports are BIG. For example, scrolling down thru scads of players in the NL Batting and NL Pitching stats reports isn't nearly as nice as doing it in the Viewer because the HEADINGS don't stay put!

Some of these issues should spur me on to look into making PSR reports available through a web browser. I've done a little bit with that quite some time ago, but need to revisit it. I know that you can get it to work using the OPERA web browser. Internet Explorer won't support it because it got rid of support of Netscape plug-ins (an older technology). Not sure about how it would work in Firefox or Safari (for the Mac). You guys using those browsers would need to test it for me once I get something ready to test. Or you could just download and install Opera on your PC -- it's free (and happens to be my browser of choice, although I also use IE sometimes).


THE PLACE for NEWS

This will probably take some getting used to for the Old Guard, but this blog will now serve as the place for HARL News. I will slowly be weaning everyone off the regular EMAILS you used to receive.

So that means the weekly FAD Results will be posted here. League commentary will be posted here. Trade announcements will go here. And so on and so forth. So be sure to bookmark this blog (http://harlbaseball.blogspot.com/) and visit it on a regular basis.

Another nice thing about the blog is that YOU GUYS can LEAVE COMMENTS on any blog post (article) that I write here. So 2-way communication over the web is now possible. Everyone can read whatever you post (including outside site visitors), so don't post anything you don't want a stranger to read.


That's about it for now. I'll have a review of the FAD process and Waiver Wire picking process later this week, so look for that.

And so it begins!

After 21 seasons of communicating entirely by phone, email, and PSR software reports, HARL finally has a web presence in Season #22. Pretty cool huh?

Creating our own home on the web has been something I've thought about for a long time, but I never took the time to make it happen. Why? Mostly because our mix of email communication and PSR reporting methods worked just fine. They still do, really.

Secondly, I've always been a little leery of the time required to maintain pages on the web. Many a league website has been abandoned due to the burden of maintaining it and keeping the information fresh. That's something that still concerns me, but at least I'm going to give this the old college try and see how it all works out.

I'm still going to generate PSR Reports each week from Rhino Baseball. You guys will be able to download the ZIP file containing those reports from HARL Central and view them in the Rhino Viewer like you've done before. Eventually, I may test out incorporating the use of a PowerBuilder plug-in on RhinoSoftware.com so you can view full-color PSR reports online thru your web browser. That won't happen right away, but it's on my things-to-try list.

I will also post a series of online reports as well such as the current Rosters, Waiver Wire, Team Standings, Weekly Roster Moves, and so forth (pretty much the same stuff you came to expect in the body of the weekly emails from the past couple of years). I may also post some additional stats/analysis reports as well, provided it's not overly time consuming.

An archive of the major news/events is also being included on HARL Central, so you'll have a handy way to reference old important news items that you previously received via email.

Most of the weekly newsy notes and league banter & comments will now appear on this Blog, rather than be sent via email each week. So we'll slowly be transitioning from regular email communication to heading to this Blog to get your HARL news.

You'll notice in the lefthand margin there are lots of links. The HARL Stuff section takes you to HARL Central (where you can view online reports, download PSR reports, and read archived news articles). You can also check out the Mega Links to go to a directory which lists every online report that has been posted this year. Clicking on a report name will take you right to that online report.

There's also a helpful collection of links to Baseball News (for daily news/chat and boxscores), Baseball Stats (for player stats), Baseball Blogs (sites where people talk about baseball and fantasy baseball), and Baseball Podcasts (where you can download MP3 audio files and listen to shows on baseball).

I'm sure that our website will grow and improve over time. Your suggestions on helping to mold this blog and the HARL Central site are always welcomed.

Until next time, see you on the web!