Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seen the future and it is covered in numbers, charts and trending lines and it will change the way we follow the game of baseball.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be invited to a presentation by Bloomberg Sports in conjunction with MLB.com of their new baseball statistical analytical tool. This new technology will not only change how fantasy baseball aficionados compete in Fantasy Baseball Leagues but it will change the way you follow your favorite team.

Bloomberg Sports has two different applications, one for fantasy baseball and the other that gives MLB front offices more information on players than you  could possibly imagine,  we were given a preview to both.

Fantasy Baseball Kit

Former NYC Deputy Mayor and now President of Bloomberg LP, Dan Doctoroff,  lead off the impressive presentation of this product by comparing what Bloomberg has done for the way folks in the financial industry receive data that’s how baseball fans and fantasy players will get all the info they need about every player in MLB to field the strongest fantasy team they can. Now I’m not a hard core fantasy player but even if I didn’t play, as someone who craves as much baseball info I can get, this site will do that and more.

The stats are easy to look up and with the ability to find just about every statistic you need to make your draft choice is just a click, click, click away. Say your in Round 9 of your draft (by the way this tool works with just about every on-line sports sites that run Fantasy leagues, Yahoo, ESPN, CBSports etc. with a pull down tab for easy access) and you want to find a decent utility man who has a good OBA some power and can play some outfield as well as infield, you can customize the Draft Kit to give you a list of players who meet that criteria.

The players are displayed on the screen like baseball cards, as you click on the player, his whole baseball life is at your fingertips. Not just statistics but any news item that mentions that player. All news and stats come to in real-time.

Not only is this site a fountain of baseball information, it is ascetically appealing. Easy to read color charts and player trending graphs are so vibrant and easy to follow.

Along with The Draft Kit there is also an In-Season Tool that is sold separately that gives you real-time news, content, and scores from all MLB teams as well as content written by the Bloomberg Sports staff of which Jonah Kerri is the lead writer, with more top quality baseball writers coming on board soon. You can follow every player on your team in real-time as stats are updated after every at bat. As Mike Silva said to me as we watched the presentation, “It’s like day trading for fantasy baseball fans” Well said.

If you purchase just the Draft Tool Kit is will cost you $19.95. If you buy the In-Season Tools that will cost you $24.95 but if you buy both the both Bloomberg Sports is bundling both for a cost of $24.95. Not only do you get the Draft-Kit and In-Season Tools but you also get the Premium content for the Bloomberg Sports writing staff headed by Jonah Kerri. A worthwhile investment in my opinion if you’re a big time fantasy baseball player and or a hardcore baseball fan.

Pro Application

If the Draft Kit/Draft Tool site wasn’t intense enough, after a delicious lunch, the Bloomberg Sports team of Bo Moon and Stephen Orban, put the presentation into overdrive as we got to see what has been pitched to all 30 MLB teams to help there front office’s work a lot more efficiently.

The Pro App was the one most of the bloggers in attendance were drooling over. It had every stat and parcel of player information you could think of (One of the most asked questions to the Bloomberg staff was about adding more intense sabermetic formulas to the app and they said that will be done, hopefully by next year.) including service time Rule 5 eligibility and options to minor leagues. Also Pitch F/X, pitch counts and pitcher/batter tendencies. Examples were of what certain pitchers throw in different counts and what pitches they go to certain batters. In one way this could be a boon to managers making in game decisions or a bane of their existence as the second guessing could be overwhelming (this info in the hands of bloggers could be like a third world country obtaining a Nuclear weapon) in fact, it was told to us that as much as some teams have bought the program and have embraced it, many felt the facts and figures were “overwhelming” I tried to see which category our beloved Metropolitans fell, but mum was the word.

As much as I was impressed by this product and I was more impressed by the presentation and the hospitality by the Bloomberg Sports and MLB.com staff. They are first rate people with a first rate product.

 

 

I was an 11 year old 6th grader at P.S. 105 in Boro Park Brooklyn. Our teacher, Mrs. McGuire, brought in the big ass city issued black and white TV so we could watch part of Game 5 of the World Series with the New York Mets one win away from completing one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. 

Last night on PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL, Lenny Nesslin of LenNYs Yankee blog and Rich Mancuso of NY SPORTSDAY were our guests as we discussed the Highlander-Angles ALCS. At one point during our discussions Myself, Joe Mc Donald and Rich, three big time Mets fans, wondered if the worst day of our baseball life, a Highlanders-Phuck Phaces World Series comes to fruition, who would we’d root for or in other words what is the best case scenario for Mets fans?

Between the three of us, it was unanimous; there is no way in world that we could ever root for the Phuck Phaces. Now it’s not like we are going to be donning “SWISH-O-LICIOUS t shirts or lighting votive candles in Monument Park but the consensus was the Highlanders were the lesser of two evils. Now if it’s Highlanders-Hollywood Bums, then there is no question that we will join our owner in rooting for the former tenants of Mc Keever Pl, in fact we are hoping if the Brooklyn Dodgers of Los Angeles win the World Series we can get a good seat at $iti Field for the raising of Dodgers World Series flag on opening day and the unveiling of the George “Shotgun” Shuba statue outside the RF gate.

Back to this date in 1969. It’s times like these that I feel bad for the younger generation of Mets fan. Believe it or not kids, the Mets were THE TEAM in town once upon a time. As a young gutter snipe growing up in Brooklyn, Highlander fans were mocked and ridiculed. It was all Mets all the time in the papers, the NY Daily News ran COLOR front pages just for the Mets. COLOR FRONT PAGES!!!! The moon landing didn’t get a COLOR FRONT PAGE!!!! ( I guess you realize that COLOR FRONT PAGES in the Daily News were a HUGE event)

I remember hearing Curt Gowdy calling Game 5 and hearing the fans screaming in that last inning. But the images that stick with me as I watched on TV was Cleon Jones making the catch in LF and dropping to one knee and the fans pouring out of the stands and covering the field. The next day the stories were of fans tearing up the sod and digging up home plate and the pitching rubber. Where are those artifacts today?

The post game celebration was legendary not just for the new World Series champs but for me as well. The site of Seaver, Kossman, McGraw and my man Kranepool pouring beer and champagne on each other led me to the kitchen where my mother was making dinner. (Mom was never a big sports fan but with three sons the woman washed more uniforms than most clubhouse personnel in fact she excelled in getting grass and blood stains out of white uni tops) and to the fridge to grab one of the old man’s Rheingolds. My mother then screaming at me “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and me telling her, “Relax Ma, I’m not going to drink it, I’m just going to pour it on my head like the Mets. They won the World Series Ma! They’re World Champs!!!!!

I was very lucky as I went to a ton of games as a little kid and many were during the season of ‘69. My brothers being 20 years older than me, took me to games and most of the time we sat in box seats in the field level. Whenever I’m asked about my fondest memories of Shea Stadium the memory that always sticks with me are the Friday night games I went to when the Dodgers or Giants came to town. There was a Madi Gras atmosphere at Shea. Mrs. Payson was always stationed at here seat next to Mets dugout. There was a Dixieland Band that would roam the stands, fans would yell LET’S GO METS thru their Mr. Met megaphone, and in between innings Jane Jarvis would entertain us with melodies on her Thomas organ. No awful teenybopper music screeching from the sound system, no one talking on their phone or checking their CrackBerry during a second and third no out jam, no racing garbage trucks. None of that, just baseball and baseball fans enjoying both their new found love, the Amazin’ Mets and lamenting the love their loss, the Bums and ‘Jints.