The battle for saves

Having been granted an extension on some "real" work I'm doing, my thoughts turn to baseball, and, in particular, the standings in L.A. Slackers.

Harder's Hitters are leading, fairly comfortably, and have been in first place most of the season.

But rather than become complacent I've been looking to see where I can become more competitive. I talked about my recent acquisition of Andrew Bailey for holds leader Daniel Bard as a way of gaining saves points, but will I?

What I looked at this morning (even before starting my other work ;-) was, given how pitchers on rosters had been accruing saves so far, where were the teams in L.A. Slackers likely to end up in saves and how would that impact the final standings?

The ChowdaHeads lead in saves, with 71, and still have Jonathan Papelbon and Kyle Farnsworth (and Koji Uehara, who may pick up some saves with Texas), so will likely end up in first.

But as of today, four teams are tied for second place with 52, and one is back a bit at 48.

With each of the four second place teams getting 4.5 points in saves, whoever ends up in second will gain up to 1.5 points if the four-way tie is broken.

So, how are Harder's Hitters and our opponents likely to do from here on out?

Harder's Hitters (54.5 points, 4.5 in saves) - Andrew Bailey, Jordan Walden, Brandon League (Glen Perkins, Mike Adams, Rafael Soriano, Alfredo Aceves) who have totaled 66 saves among them in 2011.

Biloxi Ibexes (45 points, 4.5 in saves) - Sergio Santos, Kevin Gregg (Vinnie Pestano, Scott Downs, Tony Sipp) totaling 41 saves in 2011.

Chi-Town Hustlers (45 points, 2 in saves) - Joakim Soria, Neftali Feliz, Joe Nathan (Chris Sale, Jesse Crain) with 52 saves in 2011 (all for the Hustlers).

ChowdaHeads (44 points, 7 in saves) - Jonathan Papelbon, Kyle Farnsworth (Daniel Bard, Koji Uehara, Matt Capps, Hisari Takahashi) with 61 saves in 2011.

Hollywood Weasels (43.5 points, 4.5 in saves) - Mariano Rivera, Chris Perez (Darren Oliver, David Pauley, David Robertson) totaling 52 saves in 2011.

Wombats (37 points, 4.5 in saves) - Jose Valverde, Jon Rauch (Joaquin Benoit, Grant Balfour) with 43 collective saves in 2011.

Since we are right around the 2/3 mark of the 2011 season, simply adding one-half of the saves accumulated so far by pitchers who are currently on our fantasy rosters to current totals would give a projected final tally (assuming no injuries or changes to closer designations).

That calculation leads to the following projected saves totals:

ChowdaHeads - 112 saves, 7 points, no change
Harder's Hitters - 96 saves, 6 points, +1.5 points
Weasels - 87 saves, 5 points, +0.5 points
Hustlers - 83 saves, 4 points, +2.0 points
Wombats - 81 saves, 3 points, -1.5 points
Ibexes - 79 saves, 2 points, -2.5 points
Khronic - 5 saves, 1 point, no change

And, ceteris paribus, would make the final standings:

1. Harder's Hitters - 56 points
2. Hustlers - 47 points
3t. ChowdaHeads - 44 points
3t. Weasels - 44 points
5. Ibexes - 42.5 points
6. Khronic - 38.5 points
7. Wombats - 36 points

So far, so good.

As a proxy for weighting recent performance more heavily, I also looked at just the last 30 days' worth of performance, and projected from there (with roughly two months left in the season, I doubled the number of saves in the last month for each rostered pitcher and added that to current team totals).

With this more recent weighting, here are the final projected saves standings:

ChowdaHeads - 97 saves, 7 points, no change
Hustlers - 82 saves, 6 points, +4.0
Harder's Hitters - 80 saves, 5 points, +0.5
Wombats - 76 saves, 4 points, -0.5
Weasels - 72 saves, 3 points, -1.5
Ibexes - 66 saves, 2 points, -2.5
Khronic - 4 saves, 1 point, no change

This would make the final standings thus:

1. Harder's Hitters - 55 points (56 with other method)
2. Hustlers - 49 points (47)
3. ChowdaHeads - 44 points (44)
4. Ibexes - 42.5 points (42.5)
5. Weasels - 42 points (44)
6. Khronic - 38.5 points (38.5)
7. Wombats - 37 points (36)

Not much difference, I should be good, and I'm not surprised the Ibexes tried to get me to trade them Jordan Walden this morning...