Scoresheet Rookie: What’s This Hook Thing

by
March 29, 2012

Thursdays in this time slot, we’ll have some of FanGraphs’ finest talk about ScoreSheet baseball, which some consider the “realest” fantasy baseball out there. There’s defense, lineups, simulations… it’s complicated like real baseball.

This faithful correspondent is a rookie at the format. So I may be asking you, from time to time, what y’all think about this or that. This week, I’m setting my first lineups. And I’m looking at this hook thing.

First, the results of my draft, in AL-Skeeter, the 12-team AL-only keeper led by the ineffable King Kaufman. Let’s represent them in the general lineup order, without going through and breaking them out by handedness like you do in the real game. Lefties have the asterisk.

SAVE SARRIS

CF Brett Gardner* (R6, P12)
SS Yunel Escobar (R4, P12)
1B Albert Pujols (R1, P1)
C Mike Napoli (R3 P1)
2B Kelly Johnson* (R7 P1)
LF Nolan Reimold (R11 P1)
DH Shelley Duncan (R25 P1)
3B Brent Morel (R10 P1)
RF Alejandro DeAza (R12 P12)

BN Cliff Pennington# (R17 P1)
BN Tyler Flowers (R16 P12)
BN Colin Cowgill (R30 P12)
BN Alex Liddi (R32 P12)
BN Carl Crawford* (R8, P12)

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Farm: Jake Marisnick (R24 P12), Nick Castellanos (R23 P1), Mike Olt (R27 P1), Matt Antonelli (R 29 P1), Nick Franklin (R35 P1)

SP1 Matt Moore* (R2 P12)
SP2 Ubaldo Jimenez (R5 P1)
SP3 Derek Holland* (R9 P1)
SP4 Brian Matusz* (R13 P1)
SP5 Derek Lowe (R20 P1)
SP6 Jerome Williams (R 28 P12)
SP7 Charlie Furbush* (R21 P1)

RP LH1 Matt Thornton* (R14 P12)
RP LH2 Franklin Morales* (R34 P12)
RP LH3 Rafael Perez* (R31 P1)
RP RH1 Addison Reed (R15 P1)
RP RH2 Kyle Farnsworth (R19 P1)
RP RH3 Tom Wilhelmsen (R33 P1)
RP CL Greg Holland (R18 P12)

Farm: Jacob Turner (R22 P12), Drew Smyly* (R26 P12)

At the risk of dislocating my arm in patting myself on the back, I think this is a dang fine team. The lineup looks fine to me, with the nice bonus of having Carl Crawford waiting in the wings. It’s a little built on speed (which is bad), but my speed guys all have good on-base percentage for the most part (which is good). And they also boast strong defense for their positions.

The rotation is not great, I’ll admit it. I’m rooting pretty hardcore for one of the Detroit youngsters to take that number five spot sooner rather than later. I like those Hawaiian shell necklaces as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to see Jerome Williams make a ton of starts for my team.

And that brings us to the hook. Scoresheet has this thing called the hook, which is the number of combined runs and baserunners (who count as half a run) that leads to taking the starter out of the game. With a strong bullpen like I’ve got, it might make sense to have a lower hook. Problem is, I have no idea what a low hook is.

I have Moore with a 4.75 hook, Ubaldo with a 4.5, Holland with a 4.25, and Matusz and Lowe with even fours. Then in come my bully guys, with hooks all below two for the most part. Have I gone too far?





 

With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.

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Jay29
13 years ago

It seems to me (having never played scoresheet) that that “hook” idea could act pretty funky in certain situations. Imagine you’re up 10-3 in the 5th inning and Ubaldo loads the bases with 2 outs, and he’s at only 70 pitches. Does he really need to come out?

Now if he walks the first six batters in the game without recording an out? He should probably get hooked. Or if he gives up a 2-0 lead with a 5-run 7th inning.

Just seems like there needs to be some kind of situational adjustment involved with the “hook.”

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