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3/31 - If you drafted Mike Mussina, I hope you also picked up Kevin Brown, who racked up 110 TSNP in this morning's game. That performance should get most TSN teams out of red numbers. Check here for points from this morning's game.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I would work on adding the ability of the baseball Assimilator to copy in roster data directly from TSN. I still plan to do that, but I've run into some snags that will require a different programming approach than I had set up for Hoops. So, you'll just have to wait awhile for that feature.

3/30 - And so the MLB season begins. If you decided to wait until after the Japan series to draft your TSN lineup, you're already probably ranked near the top - because most teams that already set their rosters probably had Mussina and his -40 TSNP. If you are one of those that got "Moosed" (like me), just laugh it off. There's plenty of time to recover.

I have already updated the Assimilator, Yesterday's Points, and the individual player pages. However, I've decided to leave the sortable stats with prior year point data until the rest of the teams get started.

Today I'll work on adding the capability to copy TSN frozen roster data into the Assimilator. I did this for Hoops, and it turned out to be a very useful feature.

3/29 - The Final Four is now set, and in spite of the upsets along the way, we ended up with a fairly lofty group of teams, including one #1 seed, 2 #2s, and a #3. That seed sum - 8 - is below the average of 10.05 over the past 19 years, although five Final Fours have produced a lower seed sum. (The record low is 5 - in 1993 - with 3 #1s and one #2.) It is pretty normal to have only one #1 seed advance this far. This is the 9th time in 20 years that only one #1 seed has survived.

Xavier could have really shaken things up with a win yesterday, though. Not only would this have been the first time that all four #1 seeds were shut out, but it would have really scrambled the Market Madness standings. Close, but no cigar. So instead, we're left with a very normal looking foursome. Now we go into waiting mode for almost a week.

Today's task is to make some final decisions and load up my TSN baseball rosters. The season starts tomorrow, and with a 5:05 AM (yes, AM) freeze time, you'd better have your roster in place before turning in tonight. You can wait until later for your Swirve and PSC rosters, however, as those games ignore the two game series in Japan.

3/26 - Market Madness standings are starting to round into shape, but until the Final Four teams are settled, volatility will continue to be the norm. Remember that a team (other than a #1 seed) which reaches the Final Four gets a bonus of 10 times its seed value. That would be 70 for Xavier, 80 for Alabama, 90 for UAB, and 100 for Nevada. If you have the corresponding basket unit(s) as well, you can really surge - in either direction.

The big NBA producers last night were Larry Hughes (57 TSNP) and Bob Sura (48). Nice differentiation if you had either one!

Baseball starts in less than 100 hours!

3/25 - Hopefully you didn't get suckered in by Tuesday's big performers. Kirilenko followed up his 64.5 TSNP night with a very pedestrian 24 (with no blocks and no steals). Even worse, Sam Cassell's triple-double encore turned out to be worth 10.5 TSNP. Yech.

Today will be "dump the Kings" day. After a long, strong schedule, Sacramento plays only once in the next 6 days. So goodbye Bibby, CWeb, Peja, Christie, & Vlade (well, he was probably gone awhile ago). It's been fun. Well, except for last night.

So make your trades, and then sit back and watch the resumption of the NCAA tournament, which will undoubtedly be more entertaining than whatever NBA games are on tonight's docket.

3/24 - Andrei Kirilenko isn't particularly widely owned in TSN Ultimate (less than 10% of teams), and certainly was a nice differentiator for those teams that do own him. His last three games have averaged almost 60 TSNP, and last night's stat line was symptomatic of the reason why: 19 pts, 8 rebs, 7 blocks, 7 assists, 4 steals. The biggest mistake I made in the RotoGuru Invitational Hoops draft last fall was failing to take him in the second round. I did have him ranked as the best available at the time, but held out faint hope that he might slide to the next round, so I took Jason Terry instead. I also wasn't sure whether I should believe my projections. Turns out he's been even better than I had forecast. The ESPN player rater currently ranks him #3 overall this season, behind only Garnett and Stojakovic.

Sam Cassell had an unusual triple double last night. He shot only 2-11 from the floor. He could have gotten the TD with an 0-11 night, though, as he was 10-11 from the charity stripe.

This morning, I updated the RotoWire player links in the baseball sortable stats reports. It turns out that many of them had changed since last season. I wonder why. In the process, I also updated a lot of out-of-date team affiliations. Yesterday afternoon, I loaded the Assimilator with new draft prices. This afternoon, I plan to create the new individual player pages for 2004. Those pages don't have much useful info until the season starts, but the embedded links may be helpful. Once I get those done, I should be all set for opening day. Thanks for your patience as I slogged my way though all of the preseason setup.

3/23 - Baseball starts one week from today, with the Yankees and Tampa Bay in Japan for two games. Those games both start at 5:50 am EST, so you'd better have your rosters lined up by Monday night.

The sortable stats now include PSC data, so all three covered games are loaded. Today, I hope to get an updated version of the Assimilator posted. With so much roto drafting taking place in the last few weeks, I really haven't started to scout the possibilities for TSN, Swirve, and PSC. So the next couple of days will be a good time to get started, before college hoops retakes center stage.

In the NBA, injuries continue to be the dominant story. Last night, Jermaine O'Neal was the latest victim. He was on 42 of the top 100 TSN rosters (and 13 of the top 25), so it definitely has an impact. As of 10am this morning, the top 100 teams only had 125 total trades between them - an average of 1.25 per team. Against those trades are the following recent injury concerns: 42 Jermaine O'Neal, 39 Gilbert Arenas, 15 Corey Maggette, 12 Marcus Camby, and 8 Brad Miller. Those total 116, although maybe all don't need to be dealt, as some are "day to day".

3/22 - If you were wondering what happened to the first round upsets, the answer is now clear. They moved to the second round. The first round saw only four underdogs advancing, vs. a historical average of eight. But there were seven upsets in round 2. Two #1 seeds are already gone, and neither of them is St. Joe's. The East Rutherford region still has the #1-4 seeds alive. None of the other three brackets has more than 2 of its top four seeds.

But now we pause.

NBA Hoops dealt a few unkind blows yesterday. Gilbert Arenas, who was on just about all TSN rosters, sprained his ankle. Corey Maggette was a surprise DNP with a sore knee. Quentin Richardson missed his 2nd consecutive game with back problems. With Jason Kidd on the IL, Kobe Bryant heading to Colorado for another court date, and TMac going to funerals, the guard slot has been a real nightmare this month. If you can find someone who's healthy, just ride him! Don't worry about schedule.

Swirve baseball data has now been loaded in the sortable stats. PSC data should be loaded sometime this afternoon. Once I get that done, I'll work on updating the Assimilator. The TSN season starts one week from tomorrow, but the Swirve and PSC games don't get started until the following week. So you still have time to get your rosters assembled. But the ticking of the clock is now audible.

3/19 - Only two underdogs (by seed) won on day #1, although there were several other near misses. On average, there are 8 underdog winners in the first round of the tournament, so I suppose we have 6 to go today.

I posted a tally of unit positions for this year's contest. UConn is the big favorite, showing up as a long on almost half (46%) of all entries. St. Joseph's is the dominant short, showing up on the short side of 70% of all entries. Every unit shows up as a long at least once, and only 2 units were not shorted at least once. If you are one of the 59 who shorted UConn or one of the 26 who went long on St Joe's, you have a great opportunity.

After today, half of the games in the tournament will be complete! After Sunday, 3/4 will be in the books. But the big swings in contest scoring occur next weekend, especially if underdog seeds make it into the final four. So, if you like your current position in the standings, enjoy it. But frankly, it takes a couple of weeks before the standings begin to settle in. Meanwhile, if you are a GuruPatron, please check the "GuruPatrons Only" option on the standings to make sure I have correctly identified your entries, including those of any immediate family members. If I have missed any, please send me an email and I'll make the needed corrections.

3/18 - Let the games begin!

As of 9am this morning, with more than 3 hours to go, more than 500 entries had been submitted in the Market Madness Contest. Last year's contest had only 538, so it looks like we're back on the growth curve, after sliding a bit last year.

You have until 12:20pm ET to submit your picks. Even if you don't quite understand it, try submitting something. You never know. My daughter always seems to do well, and she doesn't know diddly. It doesn't cost anything to enter, and you'll understand it better if you have a slate of picks to follow along the way.

This afternoon, I'll begin posting standings shortly after the first set of games is completed, probably around 3pm. Thereafter, results will usually be updated after each set of games throughout the day, and throughout the tournament. Admittedly, the early standings don't tell a very helpful story, as those entries with big shorts and lean (or no) longs will rise to the top of the early standings. By the end of the weekend, though, those entries will begin to sink. Still, it's the Elite 8 round that really drives the standings, since the winners of that round can get bonus points (if they aren't #1 seeds), so don't read much into the early returns.

It's awesome, baby!

3/17 - This is undoubtedly the busiest week of the year at RotoGuru World Headquarters. Also one of the best.

Market Madness is ramping up, with almost 500 registrations through this morning. Tomorrow, we start what is perhaps the best 48 hours of college hoops.

Baseball is getting lots of attention. I have three drafts currently in progress, including the RotoGuru Invitational Baseball Challenge, which is now in the 20th round. I'm also in the midst of getting the sortable stats prepared for the three covered salary cap games. (More on that in a moment.)

And the NBA season continues apace. It's difficult to find the time to focus on those fantasy games. If we hit another spate of injuries, I'd have to scramble to find the time to refigure all of my planned moves.

So I've been busy - but so, evidently, have you. Yesterday's site activity (measured in transferred Gb) was the largest single day in the history of the RotoGuru.com. Of course, that could change today. The daily transfer was more than 2 gigs. I'm not sure exactly how many pages that translates into, but it's in the neighborhood of 40,000. Almost 1000 messages were posted at the forum.

I now have the preseason sortable stats up and running for the TSN games. The points are from last year's regular season, but the prices and position eligibilities are for the 2004 season. In the price change column, I show the difference between this year's draft price and last season's final price. I thought that might be an interesting screening tool, not only to see which players had the biggest increases, but perhaps to look at the biggest decreases to see if any bargains are suggested. In the next few days, I'll add the player data for the Swirve and Progressive Sports Challenge games. The Assimilator is still not set up for 2004, and that may not happen until next week.

3/16 - Among the popular choices to replace Kevin Garnett (in the TSN games) during his 3 day hiatus were Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, Tracy McGrady, and Kobe Bryant. They all did well. The worst of the group was Stoudemire, who got 43 TSNP, and the best was 56 from TMac.

We're up to 300 registrations in Market Madness as of this morning. It's hard to tell how many will follow through and make picks. Typically, between 30-50% of all registrants fail to submit a set of picks, which is puzzling. Maybe the complexity simply scares people away after they register. Hard to say. This morning, I sent reminder emails to everyone who submitted picks last year but had failed to register so far. I didn't do that last year, and total registrations were down, so maybe this will help. Frankly, it's not a big deal to me if registrations are up or down, as the game is not a revenue producer. But it's always nice to have a large field. We'll know in about 48 hours.

3/15 - There are always a few controversies related to tournament bracket seedings and selections. Frankly, this year's tournament doesn't seem to have a many outcries as those in the recent past. Perhaps the biggest gripe is the placement of Pitt as a #3 seed that may have to face #6 Wisconsin in Milwaukee in a second round game. Wisconsin probably doesn't feel like a beneficiary, though. Utah State may have been the biggest snub, but that is unlikely to have a material impact on what "could have been". The weak seeding of the Big 10 teams has raised a few eyebrows. But with a few exceptions, the field seems pretty reasonable to most of the "experts". And generally, the actual tournament results confound the pundits anyway.

The Market Madness Contest is up and running. So far, 150 people have registered. Remember that once you enter a set of picks, you can continually make changes right up until the first tipoff on Thursday. I strongly encourage everyone to use the tournament scoring simulator to assist in evaluating selections. You simply fill in the winners of each game, just as you would for a traditional contest. The simulator then tallies up the points that would result from your scenario. Especially when evaluating the various basket opportunities, these scenario results can really help to clarify the picks the would best capitalize on your tournament views.

If you have any questions, feel free to raise them at the Market Madness Forum. That forum also includes a lot of good insights from past years.

Go for it!

3/12 - 2004 Market Madness has been launched. There isn't much to be done before the brackets are announced, but feel free to register (up to 3 times), and reacquaint yourself with the scoring approach. The selection pages, simulator and scoring recap are still coded with last year's game results, so you can fiddle with history if you'd like. On Sunday night, the new brackets and prices will be loaded - hopefully by 10pm - and then you'll have 3-1/2 days to get your winning slates set up.

I ordered some server upgrades yesterday for the rotoguru1 dedicated server. That server hosts the forum, the sortable stats, and market madness, among other things. The major upgrade was in bandwidth allowance, which should now create no capacity concerns. Along with increased transfer capacity, I'm getting a faster processor, more RAM, a bigger cache, and a larger and slightly faster hard drive. Supposedly, these upgrades can be accomplished without any downtime, although I would imagine there will be a short outage sometime in the next 24 hours. I suspect that any performance improvements will be probably not be noticeable, as performance wasn't really an issue before. In fact, the only reason I'm getting the hardware upgrades is because they came in the same package with the extra bandwidth capacity.

This has been the most active week in the history of rotoguru.com (in terms of server activity). I'm sure most of that is attributable to the many baseball drafts that are taking place at the forum. I'm happy to provide that resource, and it's particularly gratifying the GuruPatron donations are also running ahead of last year's pace, which allow me to comfortably upgrade the infrastructure. I couldn't (or at least wouldn't) do it without your support and encouragement. It's quite a community we've built here, with a diversity of demographics, talent, resources, insights, and sharing, all growing out of a common underlying interest. This internet is quite a remarkable facility, isn't it? I think it just might catch on!

3/11 - It must have been "Welcome back" night. Both Kobe and Duncan returned to action. Kobe was earlier than expected (too bad for those teams that finally sold him yesterday!), and his immediate 40 TSNP production was equally surprising. Duncan was a day late - and his 19 TSNP output (in only 15 minutes) was no doubt discouraging to those who jumped in early.

Of course, TMac got most of the night's props, draining 62 points. If he hadn't been so horrid at the foul line, shooting a Shaq-like 17-26, he could have been even more spectacular. As it was, he earned 66 TSNP, but had he matched his season FT% of 80%, he'd have produced 74 TSNP.

I'm hoping to have Market Madness launched for 2004 later today. Of course, there isn't much to be done in advance of Selection Sunday. But you will at least be able to register, review the scoring rules, and fiddle with the simulator.

3/10 - You only need to glance at the top teams in TSN Ultimate to see that injuries have taken their toll recently. Of the top 15 teams, only one has more than 4 trades this morning. And those four trades were doled out after yesterday's freeze. Roster convergence is also very high, with six players now on at least 82% of the top 100 TSN Ultimate rosters: Brand(100), Shaq(98), Arenas(93), Webber(87), and Garnett(85), and Hinrich(82). Three teams still have Kobe, 7 have Quentin Richardson, and one has Iverson. Seven of those teams evidently got deked by Duncan's head fake yesterday, including three teams in the top 15. That's gotta sting!

Forum activity is running at about 30% higher than normal this week, and I assume most of that is attributable to baseball drafting activity. Looks like I'm going to have to bump up my monthly bandwidth allotment. I may also shift the sartable stats over to the rotoguru2 server, just to rebalance some of the load. It'll be transparent to you, unless you read the URL.

Progressive Sports Challenge has now released player prices. As I said last week, I don't expect to have baseball sortable stats for 2004 up until the middle of next week. If you use the current pages, be aware that the prices still reflect the end of the 2003 season for all games - TSN, Swirve, and PSC.

3/9 - In terms of cumulative workload, LeBron James is certainly in uncharted waters. Being 64 games into an NBA season can't compare to being 30 games into a high school season. But tired or not, he's holding up well. In his past 10 games, he's topped 50 TSNP four times, and last night's 49.5 TSNP was almost the fifth. But before you jump on board the LeBron express, Cleveland's schedule is not appetizing, with only 5 games in the next 14 days. Looks like Bron will get a welcome breather.

It's getting tough to make long term - or even intermediate term TSN Hoops plans. The latest word on Webber is that he may play both ends of the next back-to-back games for Sacramento. Karl Malone (remember him?) could return to action within the next week. Kobe might even come back sooner than expected. Don't trade until you see the whites of their eyes, but it could pay off to be prepared for the possibilities.

Baseball casualties are also getting more attention, now that draft activity is in high gear. Minor maladies abound. Gary Sheffield looked like the first major casualty, but the latest reports are encouraging. Phil Nevin gave a scare on Sunday, but now it sounds like he might not miss much (if any) regular season time. Ditto for Jim Thome. In a competitive roto league, a key preseason injury can really torpedo a team's chances. If you lose a first-rounder, you effectively have to replace him with a waiver pickup. That's a hazard of drafting in early March. Of course, the same thing can happen on opening day - but it seems more punitive when it happens before your draft is even completed.

Carry on...

3/8 - Rick Adelman's decision to sit Chris Webber for last night's game with Orlando made perfect sense for the Kings. And, because most of the leading teams had him, it didn't have that big of an implact on yesterday's competitive fantasy results. But that may change. If Webber is going to sit the second of all back-to-backs (and that has not been confirmed), then it will undoubtedly prompt some teams to unload him, even though he still would play 7 games in the next 16 days on that basis - which isn't bad, if he puts up 45 TSNP/G, given his price. So I suspect some teams will still opt to hold him, while others will take the money and run. I'm holding, at least until Friday, when they play at Portland in the second of the next back-to-back. I'll decide what to do at that time.

3/5 - Two games from Chris Webber have already produced the following: 91.52 TSNP, $300k TSN ultimate gains (and $1.2 million in the Basic game - what's up over there?), and he's already landed on more than 31% of all Ultimate teams. I suspect that's more than half of the teams that are still active. Just what we need - more roster convergence.

I'm hoping to get the Market Madness game dusted off this weekend. Obviously, there isn't much for you to do until the brackets are announced, but it's always a good idea to get myself reacclimated to what needs to be done. By the way, I have already updated the posted historical stats to include last year's results.

And, of course, I realize that the baseball pages are still not updated for this year (other than the schedule). Once I get Market Madness ship-shape, I'll turn my attention to that. TSN and Swirve have already released player prices, and you can actually do a fair amount of preseason tinkering at their respective sites, since you don't have to worry about trade restrictions during preseason. So I don't really think you're high and dry without my statistical tools until the season starts. Still, I'll try to have those up by St. Patrick's Day, which is almost 2 weeks before the season starts (and more than 2 weeks before Swirve and PSC begin). Patience, please.

3/4 - It's unusual to have the top TSN price gainer be someone with an off day. And it didn't happen yesterday either - but almost. Gilbert Arenas led the gains with $130K, and he did play last night (but failed to break 30 TSNP). But right behind was Chris Webber ($110K) who plays tonight, but not last night. I wonder who tonight's top gainer will be? This is probably a good time to start the pool about when Webber's first DNP will be.

The RIBC draft continues to advance almost 2 rounds per day, with the 6th round nearing completion this morning. One theme of rounds 5 and 6 has been closers(9) and shortstops(5), with about half of the picks going for one of the other. Meanwhile, only four catchers have been picked, and only four teams have a 2B at this point.

3/3 - If you were waiting to see Chris Webber play before jumping on board, you didn't get anything to dissuade you last night. CWeb played only 30 minutes, but managed 47.5 TSNP in that span. The Sacramento schedule is pretty dense for the next few weeks, which makes him an attractive option. It also makes him a risky one. Webber has always been injury prone, even when not recovering from surgery. Supposedly, he'll have some difficulty with back-to-back games, and he's got four sets of those in the next 3 weeks. So if you jump in, treat that slot like it was Camby, or Derrick Coleman. In other words, keep a trade handy.

3/2 - The draft for the RotoGuru Invitational Baseball Challenge really hit the ground running yesterday. As of 10am EST this morning, we're midway through the third round. In the first 2 rounds, 11 pitchers and 21 hitters were selected, which seems pretty well balanced. And it's obvious - not surprisingly - that this will be a very competitive draft. Now that we're in round three, we've started posting rationales for our first round picks, and will continue to do this with a 2 round lag.

Hoops was not without some surprises yesterday. Baron Davis was tops with 71 TSNP. Remember when he was a staple on everyone's team? New Orleans doesn't have a spectacular schedule, but with so many guards dropping lately, he's undoubtedly showing up on a lot of radar screens again. More surprising was Mark Blount's 69 TSNP, with 28 points and 21 rebounds. Blount has three off days now, but at a $1m price in TSN Ultimate, he's got to be a solid consideration for a cheap slot. And then there was Gilbert Arenas with a paltry 61 TSNP. Arenas was one of yesterday's top price gainers, aided by Kidd's knee and Wade's foot. Arenas was the "gots to have" player at the beginning of the 2002-2003 TSN season, but has had trouble with health and consistency in Washington this year. The Wizards do have a solid upcoming schedule, so Arenas will undoubtedly be one of the big gainers for the next few days.

3/1 - March always comes in like a lion at RotoGuru World Headquarters. Without question, it's the busiest month of the year. There are boatloads of setup work to be done for baseball. Market Madness generates a flurry of activity mid-month. And there's always the continuous chore of Wade-ing through the daily NBA injury reports (no Kidd-ing).

But today the focus is on the start of the draft for the 1st annual RotoGuru Invitational Baseball Challenge. Similar to its Hoops counterpart, this is a new baseball league featuring 16 Gurupie managers who have demonstrated their fantasy baseball acumen in many ways at RotoGuru.com. The league will feature 5x5 roto scoring, but will differ slightly from most traditional 5x5 leagues by substituting on base average for batting average, and slugging percentage for HRs. The draft will take place in the baseball forum, and with 25 rounds to slug through, will probably last until shortly before the opening pitch on March 30. Once a couple of rounds are in the books, each manager will be expected to provide a brief rationale of each pick. This was a very popular aspect of the Hoops draft last October. To follow the baseball draft in progress, just click on the League icon in the upper right of this page. And for more background on the rules or for more discussion of the draft as it emerges, just check in at the baseball forum from time to time.

BTW, special thanks to Gurupie chuckball for creating the baseball adaptation of the RotoGuru Invitational logo.

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