Posted by schwarze on 8/16/2023 8:17:00 PM (view original):
League #2 Differences

We have five of the six divisions with the same winner. We have 2 other teams both advancing. But we are off on 5 other advancers.

The division winner we don't agree on is in the NL Central. You have kstober's 1938-39 Yankees team winning, but I have their score (+0.4) good enough for a wildcard spot, but significantly behind barracuda3's 1943-44 Cardinals team (+1.2). I have that team as the 4th best team in League 2 while you don't have them advancing. One of us will have egg on our face on this one.

The other teams I have advancing (that you don't include)...
41-42 Dodgers (schwarze) +0.5
41-42 Yankees (thejuice6) +0.3
42-43 Yankees (steveizzy) +0.2
44-45 Cardinals (schwarze) +0.2

The five teams you have advancing that I don't include...

31-32 Athletics (beallendall) -0.4
35-36 Yankees (toysboys) -0.4
31-32 Yankees (barracuda3) -0.8
23-24 Giants (dougsdawgs) -1.1
24-25 Senators (3dayrotation) -1.3

I can concede the first two on your list could outperform some of the teams on my list. But I'm not really that close on last three on your list. We shall see in about 55 days.

I am definitely much lower on a couple of those Cardinals teams, not really sure why.
- 41-42 Cardinals (11th-best in the NL)
- 42-43 Cardinals (4th-best in the AL)
- 43-44 Cardinals (10th-best in the NL)
- 44-45 Cardinals (11th-best in the AL)

In addition, two teams really stand out where I have them very low but you have advancing:
- 27-28 Giants - I have 12th in the NL (not sure why you didn't mention above? edit: I think you put 44-45 Cardinals instead by accident, who are also your team)
- 42-43 Yankees - I have 12th in the AL

Posted by schwarze on 8/16/2023 8:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by footballmm11 on 8/16/2023 8:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by schwarze on 8/16/2023 7:58:00 PM (view original):
League #1 differences (between me and footballmm11)

We have 4 differences of teams advancing. Three of the differences are very close and could go either way. But one is way off.

Details.

I have these two NL teams...
1905-06 Giants (schwarze) +0.1 (std better than league avg)
1908-09 Giants (calhoop) +0.1

... barely ahead of these two teams, which you have advancing.
1914-15 Red Sox (richiebrown6) -0.1
1912-13 Giants (kstober) -0.2

My numbers are so close, I could see any of these 4 teams advancing.

Also, you have thejuice6 advancing and my numbers show that his team (+0.1) is actually equivalent to the two NL teams I have as "others advancing", but he was just a hair below the sixth ranked team in the AL. So he could easily be the 7th AL team to advance (vs 5 NL teams).

The one team we are way off on is pedrocerrano's 1904-05 Giants team. I have him as clearly the best team in the AL Central (at +0.7), ahead of redcped's 1919-20 Indians (+0.2). You don't even have him advancing.

I do have pedro's 04-05 Giants as the 7th-best team in the AL, just barely behind the juice6, so they are very close. But I have both 19-20 Indians and 14-15 Red Sox moderately ahead in the division.

The biggest gap the other way is calhoop's 08-09 Giants. You have them advancing, but I have them 12th in the NL, mostly because I have their offense 2nd-worst in League 1 (behind 08-09 Cubs). Otherwise, I have all of your advancing teams in my top 7 in the NL (with your 05-06 Giants just a hair behind the 19-20 White Sox).

That's interesting. My numbers show calhoop's team to be a slightly above average offensively, especially considering the normalization of the 1908-09 players.

My usage-weighted batting totals shows calhoop's team with the following numbers.
.314 avg#, .394 obp#, .425 slg#, .819 ops#, 125 ops+
League average
.310 avg#, .381 obp#, .449 slg#, .830 ops#, 122 ops+

Better than league average in AVG#, OBP# and OPS+, worse than average in SLG# and OPS#

How you weight these measures may vary, but I have them far from the 2nd worst offense in the league.

But these differences is what makes these drafts fun.

When I say offense, I meant "position players" and it includes fielding. I do have their offense (hitting only) closer to average (roughly 15th), but overall I rate their position players worse (mostly this is fielding).

You're right about my 27-28 Giants. I sorted by overall, and my 44-45 Cardinals are +0.2 but are 7th in the AL, while I have my 27-28 Giants worse (-0.2) but 6th in the NL. I corrected my post. And for the record, I don't believe my Giants are that good, and won't be surprised if they suck. But like I said in the original post, I don't believe all the numbers, but posted them exactly as the numbers dictated.

I did notice that you seem to hate the 1940's Cardinals teams. Maybe your formulas are biased against strong/deep pitching teams in big offense-dominant leagues (also the 42-43 Yankees). Your numbers seem to like the hitting teams more than I do.

Posted by footballmm11 on 8/16/2023 8:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by schwarze on 8/16/2023 8:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by footballmm11 on 8/16/2023 8:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by schwarze on 8/16/2023 7:58:00 PM (view original):
League #1 differences (between me and footballmm11)

We have 4 differences of teams advancing. Three of the differences are very close and could go either way. But one is way off.

Details.

I have these two NL teams...
1905-06 Giants (schwarze) +0.1 (std better than league avg)
1908-09 Giants (calhoop) +0.1

... barely ahead of these two teams, which you have advancing.
1914-15 Red Sox (richiebrown6) -0.1
1912-13 Giants (kstober) -0.2

My numbers are so close, I could see any of these 4 teams advancing.

Also, you have thejuice6 advancing and my numbers show that his team (+0.1) is actually equivalent to the two NL teams I have as "others advancing", but he was just a hair below the sixth ranked team in the AL. So he could easily be the 7th AL team to advance (vs 5 NL teams).

The one team we are way off on is pedrocerrano's 1904-05 Giants team. I have him as clearly the best team in the AL Central (at +0.7), ahead of redcped's 1919-20 Indians (+0.2). You don't even have him advancing.

I do have pedro's 04-05 Giants as the 7th-best team in the AL, just barely behind the juice6, so they are very close. But I have both 19-20 Indians and 14-15 Red Sox moderately ahead in the division.

The biggest gap the other way is calhoop's 08-09 Giants. You have them advancing, but I have them 12th in the NL, mostly because I have their offense 2nd-worst in League 1 (behind 08-09 Cubs). Otherwise, I have all of your advancing teams in my top 7 in the NL (with your 05-06 Giants just a hair behind the 19-20 White Sox).

That's interesting. My numbers show calhoop's team to be a slightly above average offensively, especially considering the normalization of the 1908-09 players.

My usage-weighted batting totals shows calhoop's team with the following numbers.
.314 avg#, .394 obp#, .425 slg#, .819 ops#, 125 ops+
League average
.310 avg#, .381 obp#, .449 slg#, .830 ops#, 122 ops+

Better than league average in AVG#, OBP# and OPS+, worse than average in SLG# and OPS#

How you weight these measures may vary, but I have them far from the 2nd worst offense in the league.

But these differences is what makes these drafts fun.

When I say offense, I meant "position players" and it includes fielding. I do have their offense (hitting only) closer to average (roughly 15th), but overall I rate their position players worse (mostly this is fielding).

Ahh, I have three separate measures, hitting, pitching and defense. Yes, calhoop's Giants team is bad defensively - actually the worst in the league. If they had league average defense, I'd have that team in the top 7.

How I weight my defensive score into the offense and pitching is still a work in progress for me. I put more weight on defense this round than I have in previous juice rounds, so we'll see.

Posted by schwarze on 8/16/2023 8:33:00 PM (view original):
You're right about my 27-28 Giants. I sorted by overall, and my 44-45 Cardinals are +0.2 but are 7th in the AL, while I have my 27-28 Giants worse (-0.2) but 6th in the NL. I corrected my post.

I did notice that you seem to hate the 1940's Cardinals teams. Maybe your formulas are biased against strong/deep pitching teams in big offense-dominant leagues. Your numbers seem to like the hitting teams more than I do.

Yes. I would guess I am mostly just wrong here and the Cardinals do better than I expect. Likely some asymmetries and non-linear aspects that I am not accounting for in higher-cap environments.

I'll summarize the teams I'm following closely:

TEAMS I'M MUCH HIGHER ON (top 12 in league, schwarze has not advancing):

team	owner	lgrk
NYY1956	urband	1
SFG1923	dougsdawgs13	7
BOS1914	richiebrown6	7
BOS1948	footballmm11	6
SFG1912	kstober	9
NYY1935	toysboys	9
CLE1952	ronthegenius	11
NYY1997	ronthegenius	12
OAK1931	beallendall	12
SFG1911	thejuice6	12

* Particularly interested in 56-57 Yankees. Wow!

TEAMS SCHWARZE IS MUCH HIGHER ON (schwarze has advancing, I have 19th or lower):

team	owner	lgrk
CIN1975	ybjsports	26
NYY1942	steveizzy	28
SFG1927	schwarze	25
SFG1908	calhoop	27
STL1943	barracuda3	23
MIN1969	barracuda3	24
LAD1941	schwarze	20
SFG1905	schwarze	19
STL1967	emanes10	22
LAD1952	pedrocerrano	20
CIN1972	schwarze	19

Thanks, your table is clearer than what I was trying to do.

League 1, Pick 5:
1914-1915 Boston Red Sox
Pete Alexander and Ty Cobb

When juice first posted this draft I decided to research all the possible teams at least a little bit, even with my only having 1 team. My research was mostly skimming the baseball reference pages for the teams,, and then building the better ones to see how they looked. I decided on a Top 9 for each league, knowing I'd probably pick around 4-7 in whatever league I was in. I really wanted to pick in either League 1 or League 4, as I hated the League 2 and 3 options. So I was ultimately assigned pick 5 in League 1. I had the 01-02 Pirates and the 09-11 A's as the best teams in league 1, but they all went before me. So I went with my next best option, the 1914-1915 Boston Red Sox. This team obviously gets Pete and Cobb, but I saw the team as a spectacular option. The pitching is incredible (easily top 3 in the league), and the hitting is at least okay everywhere. As in my previous rounds, I focused on the depth, and the depth with these Sox was the best in the league. Really excited to get to play with this team. My prediction is that this team is the clear division winner in the AL Central; I thing schwarze is underestimating me. Looking forward to seeing if my team plays up to my expectations!

I love your pitching staff, no doubt. It was already strong and got stronger with '15 Pete. But my numbers show that your team's offense is ranked 23rd in the league, barely ahead of 1906-07 Cubs. Your pitching is 1.3 standard deviations better than league average, but your offense is 1.5 standard deviations worse than league average. With a mostly league average defense, this equates to a slightly below average team.

Of course, when your team expects to play a lot of 1-0 and 2-1 games, your success will probably depend on your 1-run game luck.

By popular demand, I'll write up a bit on my picks. And by popular, I mean schwarze really guilted me into it.

Generally my research this round was a lot less than normal. I built comparatively fewer rosters than previous rounds, really only a couple per league once my spot came up. I was drafting in the top 8 of each league, so I tried to catch up at the last minute and wound up putting off other things and spending two nights last week researching and picking in two leagues each night. Not ideal, but on the other hand, the prognosticators think I did pretty well with my selections. My process was to look at every combo's pitching staffs first, make some little notes, and assign colors to ones I found most promising (Green is very good, Yellow is solid, Light Yellow is maybe I can live with it, and no color means I don't want to manage that team unless I have to). Then I looked at all the hitting for the teams with pitching colors and also marked the hitting with the same colors. Generally, if I had Yellow or Green for both pitching and hitting, that's a team I wanted to draft.

League 1, Pick 4: 1909-10 Philadelphia A's (1910 Cobb, 1910 Johnson)
I had identified 6 pitching staffs as Green in this league, but none came with an offense any better than light yellow. But these A's had the best of any of them, plus I knew I could get a premium FA at both spots. I've got about 1,800 strong innings, so I don't have any concerns there. After Cobb and Eddie Collins, the lineup drops down a good bit in strength, but the top 5 in the order are solid enough. The awful here are SS Jack Baker (D+/D+ and a .673 OPS) and 3 catchers who can at least all throw but can't hit a lick. The pitching will keep us in games, and Cobb/Collins have to generate enough runs to win the low-scoring affairs I expect to see lots of here.

League 1, Pick 14: 1919-20 Cleveland Indians (1920 Ruth, 1919 Johnson)
This was the only league I had a second pick in, and the only one I had to be prepared to go deep into potential teams I'd be happy with. There are some truly awful offenses and defenses out there, so I was hoping to avoid one of those. I do have a lot of confidence in those Cubs pitching staffs of the Aughts, but 3 of the 4 picks ahead of me were all the best of those. That left me scrounging some and open to a stronger offense in a pitching-heavy league, so I scouted all the offenses left just to compare my options. These Indians are barely OK pitching-wise, but Walter Johnson helps out a lot. The addition of Ruth should be entertaining at least, as he'll likely out-homer every other team in the league. There is depth in the lineup behind him and Speaker, too.

League 2, Pick 5: 1942-43 St. Louis Cardinals (1942 Williams, 1943 Wyatt)
Pitching is hard to come by in this league, and I rated 3 Cardinals wartime pairs as the best of them. I've had a lot of success with this Cards era, so I felt pretty good about giving them a shot here instead of one of the great offensive juggernauts. With no other 42-43 pairing left, I also could get the best FA choices. Wyatt is a bit under 200 innings but as good as any pitcher in the league. Plus I get to pair a very good Williams with Musial atop my order, and there's some good depth behind them, too. The defense is only average, but I hope that doesn't upset the pitchers too much.

League 3, Pick 8: 1971-72 Oakland Athletics (1971 Murcer, 1972 Sutton)
I admit here that once I envisioned a rotation of Blue, Hunter, and Sutton (or perhaps Seaver or Carlton if someone took the Pirates), it was going to be hard to convince me of another pick here. There is a stable of useful relievers, none spectacular but plenty to cover all the innings without needing anyone who isn't solid. The offense isn't great, but I don't think it needs to be. Much as I loathe Reggie Jackson personally, occasionally I have to roster him. He'd better hit, though. I toyed with bringing in '72 Morgan to play 2B instead of glove-only Dick Green, but the A's didn't have much OF depth or enough speed so I went with Murcer instead. I'm flabbergasted to have discovered that Dick Williams led off Bert Campaneris and his .603 OPS much of the time, apparently believing that speed was the only important aspect of a leadoff hitter. Yet, they won a WS or three, so what do I know? I'm hitting Campy 8th, you can be sure.

League 4, Pick 7: 1997-98 Atlanta Braves (1998 McGwire, 1997 Pedro)
This league at least had a lot of pitching staffs I liked still available at my spot. I wasn't totally convinced about these Braves, though, in part because the bullpen is shallow and walk-prone. I have to hope we hit enough to overcome them. We've got a ton of power, plus speed at the top with Lofton and some guy who hit 70 homers who I dropped into the middle of them once I realized we needed a DH in this league. I would have preferred Larry Walker but he got taken first. It's a deep lineup and a pretty deep rotation, too. I feel pretty good about our chances here.

That's what I can muster up here. Hope everyone's predictions come true and all these teams advance. Good luck, all!

My approach to prepping for this draft was to rank each team in each league in pitching and hitting (1 – 35/44) and combine those rankings into an overall “score”. The lower the score the better the team. For the pitching, I simply took the best 1460 IPs based on ERC#. The hitting used the best 5550 PAs (6200p PAs for league 4) on was based on OPS#. Coming up with the best 5550 PAs was much more time consuming as they had to include enough PAs at all positions. These numbers included the free agents My approach for selecting the free agents from groups with multiple team options was as follows:

2 options – take the second best free agents
3 options – take the third best free agents
4 options - take the third best free agents based on the assumption that all 4 options probably wouldn’t get taken.

Once an option was selected from one of these groups, I would update the free agents associated with the remaining teams in that group.

I based my selections on these rankings, along with past experience using these teams and visually looking at their defense/speed.

General Observations:

In building the lineups for these teams, I was surprised at how many holes existed in the lineups of these elite teams. Almost all the teams in league 1 had numerous holes. The other leagues weren’t much better. As for free agents, although there were certainly advantages to being able to select the top free agents, there didn’t seem to be that much difference between the top choices and second/third choices. The one big exception was 1942-43 (Yankees and Cardinals) where the drop off between the ’42 Williams and the other options was dramatic.

League 1 Pick 1: 1901-02 Pirates

This was the number one overall pick. I should have let schwarze make this selection for me as he was 99.99% sure that I would take them. I wasn’t nearly so sure. At the time I made this pick, I had completed my rankings for leagues 1 – 3 but had only completed the pitching rankings for league 4. Based on my rankings, the 01-02 Pirates, 26-27/27-28 Yankees and the 53-54 Indians were at the top of their respective leagues. In league 4, the 15-16 Cubs and the three Dodgers teams had the best pitching in league 4. It was quickly apparent that the Cubs didn’t have enough hitting to be selected here. Based on my rankings, the Indians should have been the top choice as the difference between their ranking and the next best team (61-62 Yankees) was the greatest of any of the leagues. However, I’ve haven’t used many of those players before, so I was a little apprehensive about selecting them. As for the Dodgers, I was reasoning that with two picks in the top 8, I’d cover two leagues with those picks and knew that I’d have the 4^th pick in one of the remaining leagues and the 5^th in the other. Therefore, I would have a good shot at getting one of the three Dodger teams with one of those picks. This left me with choosing between the Pirates and one of the Yankees teams. I have good success with the early Pirates teams, so that past success and the A+++ range of Wagner and Lajoie was the deciding factor.

League 2 Pick 2: 1927-28 Yankees

This was the last of the top 8 picks. With picks 2 through 7, the 26-27 Yankees went but the 27-28 Yankees were still available which was exactly what I was hoping for. However, I never expected that two of the Dodger teams from league 4 would go (especially to the same owner). In addition, the 42-43 Yankees were selected which jumped the 42-43 Cardinals way up the rankings (but still not as high as the 27-28 Yankees). As I hadn’t completed the hitting research in league 4, I decided to take a chance there and hope the 2019-20 Dodgers would be available to me later. My ranking of the 27-28 Yankees was based on the third best FAs (Waner and Lyons) and they clearly ranked higher than my third best team (36-37 Yankees), they were a clear choice for me here.

Free Agent Musings – the 27-28 Yankees were in a group that had four team options. I suspected that the Giants would be selected and thought it was 50/50 that the Cardinals or A’s would be selected as well (they were my 27^th and 28^th ranked teams). I was happy that neither was selected - as getting the ’28 Hornsby and ’28 Braxton was a nice bonus. I thoroughly enjoyed Schwarze’s “meticulous plan” to deprive me of Hornsby and Braxton but I was perfectly willing to use the ’27 Waner (moving Gehrig to 3B) and the ’27 Lyons.

League 3 Pick 4: 1953-54 Indians

I knew I would have a 4^th or 5^th round pick in leagues 3 and 4, but not which one until juice posted the draft orders. I was hoping to have the 4^th round pick in league 4 as I really wanted the third Dodger team there. After reading football’s comments, I now know I was fortunate to get the 4^th round pick in league 3 as he would have taken the Indians here. This was the easiest pick for me. As I previously mentioned, this was the team that based on my rankings should have been the top pick. I was thrilled that they were still available.

Notes on the teams selected with picks 1 -3:

1969-70 Orioles (kstober) – they were my third ranked team here. The biggest reason I didn’t consider them more was I didn’t have much success with the 69 Orioles in round 3 and that Boog Powell has disappointed the last several times I’ve used him.

1967-68 Cardinals (emanes): they were my 14^th ranked team but second in pitching (after the 71-72 A’s). However, my relatively simple ranking system probably doesn’t accurately account for the fact that the A’s and Cardinals pitching were significantly better than other teams. So therefore, they probably should have been ranked higher.

1961-62 Yankees (barracuda) – they were my second ranked team and I would have fine getting them.

League 4 Pick 5: 2019-20 Dodgers

After football took the other two Dodger teams with his two top 8 picks, I was hoping to get the 4^th pick here. As I got the 5^th pick here instead, the waiting for picks 3 and 4 was an anxious time. This was especially true since I hadn’t finished researching all the hitting in this league and didn’t have a second choice after the 19-20 Dodgers. I just felt relieved when they fell to me. Once I finished the hitting research, this team actually ranked as the top team, just slightly ahead of the other two Dodgers teams (primarily because of Bellinger’s ’19 season).


My second picks in each league:

I basically followed my rankings and looked in more detail at the top 3-4 teams left when I picked:

League 1 Pick 6: 1904-05 Giants

They were my second ranked team. There was only one other team in this grouping (Cubs) and I didn’t feel they were likely to get picked. They didn’t, so I got a FA upgrade with the ’04 Lajoie and ’04 Chesbro over Wagner and Young. It was with team, that I almost had to ask the question schwarze did – what do you do if you have less than 23 players. This team had exactly 23. As a result, I only have 8 pitchers and two of them hopefully never see the mound. I’m trying a pitching approach here that I’ve never done before: Tandem 1A/1B, Tandem 2A/2B, and two mop ups (the last two on are rest). The two tandems have a combined 1581 IPs. Hoping this works.

League 2 Pick 9: 1928-29 A’s

They are my 8^th ranked team here and I’ve generally had good luck with the ’29 A’s in the past. There was only one other team in this group (Cubs) so I was guaranteed to get the ’28 Hornsby (the Cubs have the ’29 Hornsby). That helped in making this choice. Was hoping the Cubs wouldn’t get selected but that didn’t happen. I therefore lost the ’28 Vance and ended up with a tougher choice with my pitcher than I first thought. The “obvious” choice was the ’28 Braxton with his 2.01 ERC#. However, his 230 IP was a bit light, so I ran the numbers with the ’28 Grimes (353 IP 2.62 ERC#). The overall team numbers ended up about the same but as Grimes $/IP were not terribly different than Braxton, I looked at their hitting. Grimes .321 average (to Braxton’s .125) clinched the decision.

Division Selection – I always find it interesting how different people evaluate the same data in a different manner. Apparently, football (and schwarze) don’t think very highly of my A’s selection. Neither of them has them advancing to round 6. However, I specifically selected the division with football’s 1921-22 Yankees because I don’t have them rated very high – they were my 24^th ranked team. We’ll see.

League 3 Pick 11: 1952-53 Dodgers

This team was my 4^th ranked team (along with the 69-70 Twins). As barracuda took the Twins right before me, it made my pick easier. It also saved me from having to roster Harmon Killebrew again who always seems to disappoint (though the ’70 Tovar always seems to outperform). I almost got a big break here when it seemed that neither of the other two options (Indians/Yankees) might be selected. Alas, ronthegenius took the Indians with the 22^nd pick. Probably my deepest hitting team, so it should be a lot of fun to manage.
League 4 Pick 22: 1993-94 Braves

Not a lot of expectations with a 22^nd pick, but I did have this team ranked 11^th. I actually had the undrafted 01-02 Yankees ranked 9^th but to retain that ranking if I selected them, would have meant rostering Bonds (and that’s never fun).

League Note – it was interesting that football noted that he didn’t even bother to build four of the teams in this league. There were four teams I didn’t bother building either: the 19-20 and 20-21 Rays (couldn’t build a pitching staff); the 19-20 Twins (couldn’t build a roster); and the 18-19 Yankees (they just sucked).

Enjoyed reading everyone’s writeups – hopefully there will be a barracuda sighting shortly.

Thanks to Juice for investing his time in our enjoyment.

Good luck to everyone.

Stephen A Smith and Mad Dog are debating if my 42-43 Yankees selection is the worst Top 5 of all time in the Juice Tournament. Kids, always have a firm grasp of the rules before you make such a lofty selection. Why am I up there swimming with these sharks anyway?

Good writeup pedrocerrano.

Regarding your 28-29 Yankees, I have them very close to advancing (-0.3 STD vs -0.2 STD). One of the known flaws of my rankings is that I do not factor in pitcher's hitting, mainly b/c that data isn't on the player database that whatifsports provides. The fact that Grimes can hit is probably enough to push you past the two teams I have as -0.2 (including my 27-28 Giants).

Nice job by redcped and richiebrown6 as well. Any others? It's always fun to look back on these midway thru the season, or even at the end of the season.

Posted by SteveIzzy on 8/17/2023 9:18:00 AM (view original):
Stephen A Smith and Mad Dog are debating if my 42-43 Yankees selection is the worst Top 5 of all time in the Juice Tournament. Kids, always have a firm grasp of the rules before you make such a lofty selection. Why am I up there swimming with these sharks anyway?

LMFAO.

Am I Stephen A. or Mad Dog?

Posted by SteveIzzy on 8/17/2023 9:18:00 AM (view original):
Stephen A Smith and Mad Dog are debating if my 42-43 Yankees selection is the worst Top 5 of all time in the Juice Tournament. Kids, always have a firm grasp of the rules before you make such a lofty selection. Why am I up there swimming with these sharks anyway?

All I know is this pick made my pick look better, but I have no data at all to explain it.