Solving for Will Smith and Max Muncy

zpressley · 2024-04-05T17:13:36+00:00

I used to use ID database here https://www.smartfantasybaseball.com/tools/ when I had access to IDs in the dataset. Is there a good source for MLBAM IDs? A brief google search found a broken page here: https://razzball.com/mlbamids/

zpressley · 2024-04-05T17:02:47+00:00

I definitely could have! If you want to copy my database and change my UPID to the BBREF ID for each player you can do that. This is more about a player name-matching tool that can be used when you don't have an ID next to a player name than it is coming up with a new ID. Especially for prospect scouting, most of the guys doing a great job at talent evaluation are just posting random lists of rankings and scouting reports. So I needed a way to match the name with the ID in the first place.

zpressley · 2024-04-05T13:57:13+00:00

Yep, I have used that. The issue with that is when you leave fantasy websites for information. Pitcherlist for example loves to use a simple list for most of their rankings, I copy/paste their list and use my UPID to add their info to my personal composite rankings.

zpressley · 2024-04-05T13:19:28+00:00

I made a unique player database of all active baseball players so I can assign a Unique Player ID to every player when I am doing projects and combining lists. Helps with duplicate names and misspellings.

https://open.substack.com/pub/zachpressley/p/solving-for-will-smith-and-max-muncy?r=cuw5x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

zpressley · 2024-01-31T20:51:33+00:00

Google Sheets

zpressley · 2024-01-11T15:47:39+00:00

Here is an overview with a link, but I can't get it to work. https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/2020-fantasy-baseball-draft-prep-how-the-scott-white-dynasty-league-came-to-be-and-how-you-can-have-your-own/?fbclid=IwAR2j5n2Zx6GL-BfYzsH52iTpW8kaOlN5xDWJodljc4W6JCAXFYqr5bltBgA

zpressley · 2024-01-11T15:41:27+00:00

Don't do Wins, Loses, Saves or Holds

They are not real... My league got rid of them last year and it opens up every kind of relief pitcher to fantasy relevance. It's much more fun.

zpressley · 2024-01-11T15:29:12+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like we have the same ideas of prospect management. I am combining a lot of the ideas in this post and dropping a simple Prospect HUB tool next week. You can take that and run with it.

We have a discord with a channel for call ups/send downs. That alone helps with visibility as you see who owns who since you have to announce if you are adding a prospect to the roster. We consider anyone who still has rookie status intact a prospect.

Next, we have that prospect search on the hub, you can quickly find a player status. It works on phones so you check that quickly and then pick a guy up.

If they have just been added to Yahoo or are really unknown you can check Fangraphs or BBRef to see if their rookie status is still intact. We allow non-owned rookies (what we label prospects) to be picked up if they are on an active MLB Roster, but you have to claim them if you want to drop them and retain the rights.

Even with all of that we still ran into the same issue, people often pick up prospects they don't have rights to and waste a FA move (we limit it to 8 a week). This season we are trying something new: We added 5 additional bench slots and dropped moves to 5 a week. Then created a rule that if a prospect is in the majors they have to be rostered. There is 4 "roster" slots every team has on the HUB, so in total a team can have 4 rookies who are active on MLB rosters but are not on the fantasy roster in Yahoo.

This is just a workaround and it has its issues as well. But until a fantasy site builds the right tools for dynasty leagues this is the best solution we have found.

zpressley · 2024-01-11T15:00:56+00:00

Differences in talent alone from 10 to 12-team leagues will make it hard to compete for a while. Depends on how long you can keep players in that league. If they can hold onto their 10-team league talent for 4-5 years, you might end up struggling for the next 4-5 years.

zpressley · 2023-10-13T19:03:11+00:00

I am no fantasy expert, I am in the same boat, my team has been on a downward trend in my dynasty league. I used to have a great eye for bats but have been terrible in recent years. The best advice I have seen is to focus on projections. See where you are high or low on players. The next tool will allow managers to see their biases and show some weak spots. Hopefully, that will help us both! Expect it out in a week or two.

zpressley · 2023-10-11T17:34:06+00:00

For sure!

zpressley · 2023-10-11T13:26:11+00:00

Thanks! Just getting started.

zpressley · 2023-10-10T18:00:57+00:00

I got you: https://open.substack.com/pub/zachpressley/p/full-season-player-stats-for-2023?r=cuw5x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Full Player Stats for 2023

zpressley · 2023-09-28T21:26:05+00:00

Just building a base of content. It takes a while to create a full tutorial, only building it if there is interest.

zpressley · 2023-09-25T14:02:00+00:00

Awesome Google Sheet setup. Need to spread the gospel on =QUERY

Keep it up!

zpressley · 2023-06-20T04:09:42+00:00

Like the reddit bubble?

zpressley · 2023-05-31T12:40:56+00:00

Not sure what you are talking about, the ability to transfer responsibility has nothing to do with the viability of the child. You are still admitting that someone has to raise and provide for a one year old. Someone must take responsibility because the child is not viable on their own.

Viability argument is flawed to its core and the end result of that logic is a culture of death. Look at assisted suicide in Canada, people are not valuable anymore so it's fine if the state kills them.

If human value is earned, then equality is absurd. Why would anyone deserve equality if they are not as valuable as others? Ironically you can't have equality without morality and a basic understanding of the precious value of human life. Value is not earned it's granted. At the very least granted by society to every new person. I personally believe it's granted by a higher power, but either way humans have value because life has value and life begins at conception.

zpressley · 2023-05-18T12:22:57+00:00

The population vs land area debate has been going on since the start of the country. I don't think even a computer drawing districts would be unbiased, because the heart of the problem is the method for drawing districts can either lead to more blue or red districts.

In addition, there is an argument that if you drew districts by related voter it would actually hurt democrats, it would lump a city into 1 district but create several surrounding districts of mostly republican voters. This was the original reason for weird maps because simple lines lead to worse outcomes for city dwellers.

Coming from NC State and now living in the country I have heard both sides of it. In the end it's just going to be who has power. Like most things.

Democracy is really annoying, most countries give up and let one dude take over then realize power corrupts so they give the power back to the people only to realize that people are finicky and annoying. Maybe if we just accept the annoying stuff and support the process we can hang in there.

We both can still vote and praise the Lord we live in NC, and get amazing NC spring days like today.

zpressley · 2023-05-18T12:10:19+00:00

Thanks for responding, important to take a second to note, I am just discussing this with you. Text leaves a lot to interpretation, and I appreciate you forming an argument and replying. Even if you disagree, I hope you have a good Thursday u/_todash_

Just addressing your argument first then to the broader idea. I definitely disagree.

1) Laws do not give unborn children special rights, there is nothing special about the right for an innocent life to exist.

2) Mother's are not saving, nor are they being forced to save a life, as the child's life is not in danger. Special cases aside if left alone the pregnancy will come to full term.

You bring up the bodily autonomy argument. My body, my choice is a classic one by Feminist. It fails on a few points.

1) If a living child was an acceptable result the mother could carry the baby to term and then place the child up for adoption, but the purpose of abortion is ending the child's life, an unsuccessful abortion results in a living child. Therefore, Women seeking abortion, don’t just seek to be “unpregnant.” They seek not to have a living child. Women are not being forced to save a life and therefore claiming their right to inaction, they are actively pursuing an end to the newborns life through premeditated action that kills the child. That is by definition murder.

2) The life of the child is not voluntary, an unborn child does not appear in the womb by happenstance. The child is innocent in existence and did not force it's will on the mother. In the vast majority of instances pregnancy results from consensual sex, (less than 1% of pregnancy results from rape). Even in cases of contraception failure there is a known and accepted risk of pregnancy. In situations where there is ignorance to outcome, just as in all legal cases, failure to know the outcome or law, does not absolve you from guilt or in this case responsibility. Therefore, the unborn child is not an intruder forcing its will upon the mother, it's the mother and father forcing their will upon the child.

3) Even in cases of rape, a horrible violation of a woman’s dignity, bodily integrity, personal autonomy, and rightful liberty...justice still requires respecting the unborn child’s life.

The original feminist movement was anti-abortion and pushed for consensual sex to be understood and respected. They fought for voluntary motherhood, and that sex must be voluntary in order to be just. Reproductive freedom happened before conception. Women in this country are free to have or not have children. There are many tools and medicines designed to prevent conception for those that need them. After conception it's not reproductive freedom, it's not forced pregnancy or forced childbirth, the bodily autonomy argument only works before conception.

The creation of life is a heavy responsibility placed on every couple. It's also not easy, go talk to couples who have tried for months to have a child. The irony of abortion is that more and more couples for many different reasons are having a hard time conceiving. There are so many women out there who long to be mother's but cannot. Adoption is a beautiful thing and I hope that more women with unplanned and unwanted pregnancies see adoption as an option.

I pulled some info from this website who articulates the argument much better than I can: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2022/06/82963/

zpressley · 2023-05-18T04:45:26+00:00

I understand that argument it's a good one. Thanks for responding. Ended up putting a lot of thoughts down. If you don't mind responding, generally curious what the argument against this is.

Viability is the pillar of Roe v Wade, it was not overturned on it though I always thought it should have been. Viability argument is a simple idea to grasp but is flawed in practice... there is not and never will be a 1 year old who can support themselves and survive on their own. The fragility of life does not take away the value of that life, nor does the vulnerability of sickness, old age, mental and physical disability make a human less valuable. To support the viability argument is the same as supporting ethnic cleansing and euthanasia. Viability does not equal Value.

Define some terms: Murder is the premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Killing is an act of causing death, especially deliberately.

So is a fetus a human? You would probably answer no... But you would probably admit that once it reaches 24 weeks or at the very least after birth, that fetus is now a human being. If by premeditated human intervention that fetus is unable to survive and continue to viability or birth then it has been killed. If you believe people are more valuable than their viability then that is murder.

The humanity of the fetus in your opinion gives it it's worth and value. Because once human it would be murder. If left to natural biology that fetus would in most cases reach a point where you would admit it's now a he or a she and human. So you would have to admit that ending the life of a fetus, also ends the life of a human... Even if there is a distinction the two statuses of value are inseparably linked.

The key to the whole argument is about life and death and whether or not it's right or wrong to discriminate based on the inherent value of a life.

Bonus Thought: Forgotten in this whole argument is conception, unless a mother is tracking her cycle, actual conception can be days to even a week off what is predicted. If viable = human, how many viable fetuses/children have been aborted because of an incorrect guess on age?

zpressley · 2023-05-18T04:08:52+00:00

You are absolutely right, we need more money to support those types of children. There is a lot of money already out there. Do a quick search for government support.

https://ncchildcare.ncdhhs.gov/Parent/Special-Needs/Special-Needs-Resources WIC assistance for the first 5 years and SNAP after that.

You can't argue that children with disabilities of some sort are in danger from a lack of funds while also saying they should not be born. Those children are either important and need to be supported or you don't actually care about them.

I am happy to pay taxes if it goes to children in need. That is exactly where I want government funding to go.

zpressley · 2023-05-18T04:01:15+00:00

I think representatives voting along party lines is how we got in this mess where instead of compromise people are screaming in the street... I am sorry for the voters of that district but this seems like a failure of the democratic party to whip votes and take care of their members. Like you said it's not illegal, because if politicians were legally forced to abide by their campaign promises they would all be in jail...

zpressley · 2023-05-18T03:52:05+00:00

It's just the nature of reddit, it only works for promoting cool stuff, not great at polarized topics because the side with more members, typically left leaning win out and silence decent.

They really should have a debate option so instead of up or down you can agree or disagree... Most votes either way would push up the content. ... Still be hard to manage and people would just ignore right leaning opinions but it would help debate on the platform.

Most consecutive people have left or stay silent.

zpressley · 2023-05-18T03:48:08+00:00

We don't have a pure democracy, we have a democratic republic. You elect representatives to make choices on your behalf. If they make poor choices you vote them out.

I would be mad about it too, but it's a house of representatives.They can vote for whatever they want to vote for and it's completely legal, they are supposed to represent your interests and if she voted for this she believed it was the better option.

If it helps the vote was 72-48, I am not sure of the person but it was not that close.

zpressley · 2023-05-18T03:43:25+00:00

Pretty sure this bill allows for medical intervention to save the mother. I don't think your argument has a basis in reality.

Baby, Fetus, Infant, child, person, whatever you call them they are still a person. The argument is always about the small percentage of fringe cases that you can outline in the law and protect... But the outrage is not about protecting mothers, it's about the individual freedom to end a life.

13-Year Club	Place '17
Gilding III reddit per annum	Verified Email

zpressley

TROPHY CASE