Expansion Baseball in Ellensburg

A WebQuery for 9th Grade

Jeffrey Nielsen
jeffrey_nielsen@hotmail.com

Money bag A baseball player

Introduction

Congradulations you have just been just named the new General Manager for an expansion American Leauge Baseball team in Ellensburg. Your job is to build a winning franchise for the owner. To make the transition smoothly and for you to be a contender this year they are holding a Franchise draft in which you can select any player from any team and gain his single year contract for this year. The challenge is you can only take a maxium of 2 players away from a single team and you only have $90 million to build your "winning team". For this lesson plan you will be using your data gathering skills as well as some statistics based mathematics to accomplish the goals set before you.

Task

You have been tasked to form a 25 man roster in which you will have till Friday to compile the stats, saleries and averages that will be listed in the requirements for building your team. Research must be done over the web either using the sites that I provide. All the information you will need can be found on the websites listed. Once you have compiled a list of the players and figured out the averages for your team dont forget to make sure that your team meets all the requirments listed before turning it in.

Requirments:

Using the players current yearly contrats you must build your 25 man baseball roster
You can select any player from any team as long as you dont pick more then two from the same team to play for you.
Of which you need at least one player per position, and since you are in the American League you must have a DH.
between 10-12 of these players must be pitchers of which only 5 can be starters.
The stats used for examining players are the previous completed years stats i.e. it is the 2008 baseball year the stats to be used are the ones from 2007
Since The Major League doesn't want to penalize teams for using their farm systems no rookie players may be taken in the Expansion draft
It is the General Managers job to build a winning team to do this several different aspects need to happen
1.) amoung your field players their GP must add up to at least 9 players playing 162 games
2.) Amoung your pitchers their total IP must be greater then 1,200
3.) The amount of runs the team scores on average per game must be at least 1 greater then the pitchers combinded ERA ex 2005 Oakland A's RPG: 4.76 ERA: 3.69
4.) Your pitching Staff must have more wins then losses and at least 30 saves.
5.) Your team as a whole must have less then 125 errors in the field
6.) Your team as a whole must hit at least 150 homeruns, 650 rbi's and must bat a combined .250 batting average

The top team in each category if the team is constructed correctly will gain an extra credit point for every category they are the best. Ex. My team has the most homeruns and highest average out of all the teams created I get two bonus points.

The Process

Things to consider while you are researching your team:

Is this the most cost productive player I could get for this position?
Do I really need more of the statistic this player is good at or should I look in a different area?
Do I want to build a team under the salery cap or one that meets all the requirements first and then adjust as needed
Some states might not be officially kept track of ex. Runs per game but you need this information to upholde one of the objectives what information provided by the websites would allow you to figure out your teams runs scored per game?
How many star players can you afford to have before you need to go with role players?
If you hit a road block in which you cant meet one of the objectives how will you go about fixing the situation?
Which Stat do you need to take care of first?
Which Stat should you have no problem meeting no matter the players you have?
How can the info you find be organized or displayed to make it useful?
Do the websites provided give enough information for you to complete the task set before you?
If not what information is missing and where will you go to find it?

Resources

These websites should provide you with all the informaiton you will need to complete the tasks set before you so that you can build a winning team for Ellendsburg.

ESPN Entertainment and Sports Programming Network a very helpful site for finding out most any statistic you could ever need about sports.
MLB The official Major League Baseball site easy access to all the teams websites and information about their players.
Fox Sports Another great website for looking up player statistics and information about major league players.

Evaluation

The project is worth a total of 15 points and the grading system is broken down as staited in the ruberic:

CATEGORY	3	2	1	0
Payroll	The total salary is less then the stated $90 million amount they had to build the team	The total salaries are greater then $90 million but less then $100 million	The total salaries are greater then $100 million but less then $125 Million	The total salaries are greater then $125 million
Games Played	The number of games played by your feilding players is greater then or equal to 1458 games played and the Innings Pitched by your pitchers is greater then 1200	Your team meets one of the requirments for fielding players or pitchers but not the other	Your teams fielders have played in less games then 1458 but greater then 1358 and your pitching staff has pitched less then 1200 but greater then 1100	Your team fails to meet either requirement or be at least 100 games played for fielders and innings pitched for pitchers off
RPG v. ERA	The Runs per game your offense scores is at least 1 greater then your teams combined Earned Run Average	The runs per game your offense scores is at least .5 greater then your teams combined EArned Run Average	The Runs per game your offense scors is at least .5 less then your teams combined Earned Run Average	The Runs per game your offense scores is greater then .5 less then your teams combined Earned Run Average
Defense	Your pitching staff has more wins then loses, it has at least 30 saves and your fielding has allowed less then 125 errors	You have meet 2 of the three requirmetns of your pitching and fielding	You have meet 1 of the three requirments of your pitching and fielding	You havn't meet any of the three pitching and fielding requirments
Offense	Your team has hit over 150 homeruns, over 650 RBI's and is hitting for an average greater then .250	Your teams offense is meeting two of the three requirments	Your teams offense is meeting one of the three requirments	Your teams offense is not meeting any of the three requirments

In addition If you do not turn in your reseach on this assignment when it is due unless you have spoken to me before the due date will recieve a zero since we will be using the data in class for Friday's assignment no late work will be accepted

Conclusion

What a great team to put out on the field this year I can definattly see us competing for a playoff spot your thoughful evaluation of the players stats has built what should be a winning team. Your ability to use your problem solving skills along with basic math knowledge you have completed no small task one which teams with more money in thier budget fail to do.

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