Day Night Doubleheader

Side Bets 2011

2011-04-05T14:58:00.005-04:00

Over / Under:

Number of white players drafted in NBA first round in 2011 = 4.5. (Brian Over / Meng#1 Under for 1 BNS)

Side Bets 2010

2010-04-09T14:00:00.029-04:00

Wagers:

All Fantasy League Placement is for Grey Goose 750ml. Each person has to take the under.
Fred and Meng#1 are playing for meat skewers in Flushing.
Brian and Meng#1 are playing for bowls of noodles (pho, wonton, beef noodle soup, etc)
Meng#1 and Meng#2 are playing for $1.

Specific Event:

4/27/2010: Will Fred's Keeper Team (roster as of 3:30pm) get his first Hold of the season. (Fred 'Yes' 1 : 1 Meng#1 'No')

Lebron to Knicks: 4:1 (Meng#1 not Knicks 4 : 1 Brian Knicks)

Over/Under:

Total HRs David Wright + Beltran = 30.5 (Meng#1 Under 1 : 2 Meng#2 Over)

Total HRs David Wright + Beltran = 31.5 (Wong Under 1 : 1 Meng#1 Over)

HRs Garret Jones = 28.5 (Fred Over 1 : 1 Meng#1 Under)

HRs Jacoby Ellsbury = 10 (Meng#1 Over 1 : 1 Brian Under)

Combo:

Jacoby Ellsbury = 9.5HR / 55 SB (Meng#1 Both Over 1 : 1 Brian Both Under)

Versus:

Carlos Beltran Hits vs Carlos Zambrano Innings Pitched (Meng#2 1 : 1 Meng#1)

Jacoby Ellsbury HR+SB vs Austin Jackson HR+SB x2.25 (Meng#1 1 : 1 Brian)

Fantasy Finish (for Grey Goose 750ml):

Wong's Keeper Finish: 5.5 (Wong Under 1 : 1 Meng#1 Over)

Brian's Auction Finish: 3 (Brian Under 1 : 1 Meng#1 Over)

Brian's Keeper + Auction + H2H (AVG reg season & Final): 13 (Brian Under 1 : 1 Meng#1 Over)

Fred's Keeper + H2H (AVG reg season & Final): 8 (Fred Under 1 : 1 Meng#1 Over)

Wong's Keeper + Auction + H2H Reg Season + H2H Playoffs: 4.5 (Wong Under 1 : 1 Meng#1 Over)

2009 Keeper League Draft Recap

2009-04-10T03:44:00.014-04:00

In honor of ESPN's Mount Rushmore of Sports, I will do my draft recap by comparing each GM to a famous sports figure. I am doing this in the chronological order that these correlations appear in my head. Analogously, I hope this draft recap will become the Mount Rushmore of Draft Recaps. Only time will tell.

idunnobaseball (Tey)

Draft (B+):

Top quality keepers. ARod and Mauer are both #1 in their position but both are hurt. Brian Roberts is a close tier2 2B and isnt that far from the top. I really learn to appreciate his skillz watching him play so often vs the red sox and yankees. He is a fantastic player and he is one of those guys stats dont do him justice. Kinsler and Utley are clearly the top 2 fantasy 2Bs. Question is who would you rank #3. Would you go with HR/RBI in Uggla, or speed in Roberts/Figgins, or a mix of both such as phillips/pedroia/alexei ramirez (i am borderline on him). Incredibly seven are keepers this year. The drop off after these guys are as big as the drop off between Mo Rivera and the next yankee wannabe RP. Thats why i like Wong's Figgins pick because potentially he got keeper quality stats in non-keeper round.

Anyway back to Tey's draft, Corey Hart #7 is off to a great start with a 7 BB to 10 K ratio, as of Friday, with all 7 BB came in the 2nd slot in front of Braun. Brewers lineup runs arguably only 5 deep with Weeks, hart, Braun, Fielder, and Hardy. After that its cameron, hall, kendall. Hart needs protection because he is too much of a free swinger. The Brewers need to put him at 2 and stick with it so he can develop since he should be part of the Brewers's long term plans. If he doesnt turn out to be a 30/30 player by 2010, then someone should be fired. Sometimes i dont understand what these clubs are doing... On the other side of the pillow, i dont like Hunter Pence at all. The future is muddy with him like a child too old to be trained as a jedi. I just dont see where the upside is with this guy. Last year he put up pretty much the same number as Hardy #11, is it gonna be different this year? Tey drafted well in many slots including Ryan #12 (risky but worth it in retrospect), Cantu #13 (i had him in my queue for my next pick and he is cleanup for marlins), Ethier #14 (his 2008 stats are inflated but at #14, any leanup hitter is great value), Garza #16 (!!!), Burrell #17, Meredith #21, Ubaldo #24 (!!!), and Bengie #26 (another cleanup hitter!!!). Ethier was moved to the 2nd slot on saturday for the first time this season promptly hitting 2 hrs in front of Manny, further proving that the GM who drafted O-dawg is a genius.

Offense (A-):

Not one weak spot in the lineup even without ARod and Mauer. Every categoy is covered except OBP. Weakest positions are CF, OF and UTIL. OF and UTIL are easy to replace when necessary or when DL guys come back. I am kinda surprised Mark Reynolds #23 has so many ABs already. If he gets ABs and stay in the majors, he might put up some stats, hopefully other than K's. Adjusting from NL to AL will be tough so you cant expect Burrell to put up the same stats as last year as quickly. He is still a solid producer nonetheless. Ankiel #15 could be a good player, we will see how he adjusts this year. His swing is a little too long and too much of a uppercut. I am also iffy on Ankiel's playing time this year... La Russa micromanages way too much and that OF is crowded.

Pitching (B+):

Pitching is good as well with 3 solid front line starters. Ubaldo is a very wild wild card. I am high on him as i was last year because he was the only pitcher that the sox had problems with in the 2007 WS until he completely lost his control for 1 inning. Miguel Batista is puzzling. The mariners bullpen is very very solid, i dont think Batista will have a role. My scouting report tells me that the Miguel Batista of 2009 isnt the same Miguel Batista that dominated the yankees in the 2001 WS. Maybe Tey is confused... Seattle practically gift wrapped the Mets Sean Green (their RP with the worst stuff) who immediately becomes the Mets top RP behind Krod and Putz. Mariner are like the anti-yankees in terms of bullpen quality. Of course i am on the Edinson Volquez bandwagon but not at #10. His fastball/changeup combo is as good as you will see and his motions are practically undistinguishable even in slow motion. He is up there with johan and hamels and the hitter cannot sit on a pitch because he is too wild with both. But due to his wildness, he cant get call strike one as consistently as johan and hamels. he needs a third pitch that he can throw for strikes. Bullpen is a little shallow.

Notes:

I wondered off topic a lot for Tey's recap. Maybe i need to write another blog to summarize all the scouting reports i have. I think it's unfair to make Tey the scapegoat for the defunct league because there were other GMs that were absent and Kenneth and Jehming had no idea what they were suppose to do during the keeper rounds. Tey is focused and determine to prove that we should not throw him outta the league. Pretty much he has hit rock bottom on the publicity front during the defunct draft. Plus being unfairly scapegoated just like his yankee hero who was outted as the only one of 140 on the infamous (yankees) 'roids list... Tey has the street cred of... AROD.

Six Trick Pony (Meng#2)

Draft (C-):

Great great keepers in Johan, Hamels, Lester (he will be fine, he started slow last year and confused me to drop him), and 3 of the top hitters include The NEW Epitome of Tremendous Upside Potential in Longoria.

Overall this was a weak draft even without annual draft busts Vernon and Weeks. Meng#2 drafted a lot of guys i would cross off as players to avoid such as JP Howell, the black Chris Young, Ianetta, and DeRosa. On top of that, Marmol #8 is very early and backing up with Gregg #12 is smart, even though drafting Gregg at #12 is kinda early. Michael Young #9 is in a great hitting slot between Kinsler and Hamilton but i have crossed him off for years. Then Delgado #10 would a good sleeper pick for 4 rounds later and to fill your CI so early didnt make much sense. Maybe thats why you wounded up with the black Chris Young, Drew, Bradley, Travis Snider, and Taveras as your OFs. I like Travis Snider #21 a lot as a hitter, more than other people like Adam Lind. As for Ianetta, on the surface, putting up 18 HRs/65 RBIs in 333 ABs is great. But digging deeper, he put up those stats while part-timing the entire season. There is a difference between playing around 17 games a month for 6 month and playing 25 games a month after a callup for 4 month, especially for a rookie and especially for a catcher. I wouldnt even know how to project his 2009 numbers. Penny #26 is good pick for the win potential.

Offense (C+):

Delgado is probably one of the most consistent run producers in MLB. Check out his HR/RBI totals since his rookie year in 1996. His WORST year by far was 2006 with 24HR and 87RBIs and those numbers would be fantastic for any other 1B. Would u take those numbers for Ryan Zimmerman right now? I certainly would, and i repeat that was Delgado's WORST stats year. Hopefully, for the Mets fans sake, that he still Del-Got-It. The strength is in the Infield where every position except michael young (he will give good quantity of runs) will probably net at least 20 HRs and 80 RBIs. But the Outfield is so bad, it no different than the A's and SF Giants shitty OFs I get to watch everyday on the highlights. Here is a bonus scouting report: Fred Lewis != Barry Bonds. In fact, Barry Bonds probably had more talent in Jr High School than Fred Lewis does now. Milton Bradley signing is good on paper for the Cubs but this team has too many RFs already. Lowell will have a good bounce back season and be a good backup CI with plenty of RBI opportunities. The Bosox lineup this year is really deep even with Big Papi struggling.

Pitching (A):

Normally i just give meng#2's pitching staff an A and just get it over with. I have no idea why there was a shortage of closers this year so i cant blame this bullpen having only KRod, Mike Gonzo, and Gregg/Marmol since i only have 1.5 closers myself in Mo and Hanrahan. I have no idea what happened this year. Still short on SPs but u can pick someone up as the season move along.

Notes:

Before the draft, Meng#2 asked me who i would keep among Billingley, Greinke, and Lester. Of course my answer was Lester. Now i am thinking... given my track record with starting pitching, wouldn't the better question be... which TWO pitcher would i keep, then go with the third one? Remember that time at the craps table in AC when that one guy kept on betting on you to crap out over and over and over? That guy made so much money off Meng#2 crapping out, so fast, without doing shit, he would have made Carl Pavano jealous. At some point, probability-wise, u would be better off betting against me. Asking me to advise you on your pitching is pretty much like letting Bernard Madoff invest your money. In the end, Meng#2 got duped and lost valuable commodities like the Mets owner Fred Wilpon.

Ball Bags (Fred)

Draft (C+)

Fred had worse luck with his keepers than Tey with Holliday getting traded to Oakland. At first i thought that with the addition of Manny, Matt Kemp would be the logical choice to either hit 2nd which would have made him a monster keeper or at least cleanup. But apprently he is not one of Torre's Boys and he got dumped to 7th like ARod in the playoffs... totally unfair (in Kemp's case not Arod's). Liriano is off to a terrible start. Chris Davis is the first player in the top 10 rounds i crossed off this year. But i made a note to draft Tulow if possible. His hitting approach is a combination of a extremely quick line drive swing with good plate coverage and almost no stride. It's unique to only one other player i can think of, Paul Molitor. Very few things can go wrong with that swing and barring injury i would expect good things to come in the future. 8th/9th is probably a good slot for his fantasy potential, any lower i probably would have had to pick him up. Tulow definitely came at a discounted price this year. Speaking of Price #12 and Brandon Morrow #13 were fantastic picks both have high potential as RP and/or SP. Only other guy in the draft worth mentioning is Josh Johnson #18 who is very high on my pitching sleeper list. He has Cy Young stuff. Getting him #18 might be the best pick in the entire draft.

Offense (C-)

VMart will always be a great hitter if he can stay healthy but #9 for a catcher is too high. I havent seen anything from Bruce #10 yet to make me think he is an everyday MLB hitter. He is worse this year than last year. Adam Jones #19 is off to a monster start. Once again, I cannot emphasize enough, if an organization has a young player for the long-term future, stick him in the 2nd hole and let him develop. Same thing with Howie Kendrick, if he cannot put up numbers this year in front of Abreu and Vlad, then he is nowhere near the prospect people make him out to be. Morneau is always solid. Everyone else is kinda blah blah. Without looking at the 2008 stats, who on Fred's roster hit the most HRs last year. The answer is Edwin... with 26!

Pitching (B):

Fred is like Meng#2 in that their fantasy prowess leans heavily on the pitching side. Both of them have consistently identified great starting pitching both young and old. Peavy, Josh Johnson, Harang, Lackey, Price, Liriano, and Kershaw are overkill. Maybe Fred is why I couldnt find any good pitchers late and had to resort to dumb Taiwanese Yankee pitchers. I said awhile ago that whenever Fred figures out how to put together a bullpen, he will be able to contend. Morrow is obviously a fantastic pick. I feel the same about him as I did about Papelbon... he is much more valuable to the team if he develops as a dominent starter. But you cant argue with his RP results. Hoffman is pretty good at #15 but i dont like Charlie Villaneuva as a pitcher. whatever stats he can get as temp closer is a bonus. Chris Ray #17 just doesnt have it so far this year. He is probably not even worth a fantasy roster spot at this point. But i like Chris perez #24, I thought he handled MLB hitters very well in pressure situations last year. Again, Fred's SPs are as terrific as his RPs are bad.

Notes:

It's strange to see 2 teams (Kenneth & Fred) rebuilding this year which made the lack of closers even more puzzling. Fred is a past champion who likes to build on young talent and stud pitching. Once in a blue moon, he will make a run and take down yearlt championship contenders like myself. Obviously this will likely be a down year with young guys like Weiter, still developing Kemp, Tulow, Bruce, Kershaw, and Price. I trust fred's ability to rebuild his championship team quietly like Jeffrey Loria, who in case you dont know, he is the owner of the marlins.

F this F'in League (Wong)

Draft (B-):

Kept 3 top players. Da Mexican Panda aka "the player formally known as the epitome of tremendous upside" is an offensive juggernaut. Aramis is keeper equivalent this year because of the weak 3B and drafting him and vlad were steals. Russell Martin is a solid athlete who might get move to another position this year. If he keeps his C tag while moving to say 1B or 3B full time, that would be ridonkulous. True to Wong's style, he went offense and closers/relievers all the way with the exception of Lamborghini Gallardo #10 which was an ideal round to get him. Problem is that although he has as much potential as guys drafted earlier like kazmir, daisuke, billingley, AJ, and the like, Brewers will definitely put the Joba-training-wheels on him limiting his fantasy production. I dropped his value a couple of rounds because of it. I have an affinity towards coco cordero as he put up one of the greatest fantasy pitching stat lines for my championship in 2006. I had no idea jason motte was the closer for the cardinals at all. Needless to say, drafting him at #15 goes without my approval. Again, true to wong's monopoly style, drafting Shoppach #24 is good value but completely wasted given Thome at UTIL and Martin at C.

Offense (B):

Contrary to many retarded fantasy experts, I do not like orlando cabrera this year. A's will have trouble scoring... trust me, i know my local team. Initially i gave wong a B for his draft but it turned out wong drafted WAY too many OF and C and will not be able to play them all, thus forcing me to drop him to B-. If you are gonna go with Adam LaRoche, at least you should draft a back up CI until he gets hot mid-May. Thats quite an oversight in my opinion. I like the potential of a bounce back year from Figgins and a good year from Kendrick, the signing of Abreu really solidified the Angels lineup. Everyone else is ok but i dont see too many of them out-producing 2008. Except maybe kaz matsui if he can stay healthy to score 90R and 30SB getting plenty of rest during the season.

Pitching (C):

I like Scott Baker, he is a high in intelligence with passable stuff, which is a lot better than passable intelligence and great stuff such as a Carl Pavano. As of this writing, Wong's SPs are just decimated (Webb, Smoltz, Baker all DL) but the RPs are doing good. I would have avoided anyone in the TB bullpen this year because of over-valuing, especially Dan Wheeler. i would drop a offensive player and pick up a RP to replace Motte for the time being. Rafael Perez will be fine but he really should be dominating left handed hitters more than he is. I cant believe someone drafted Maholms. The upside is very limited. My strategy of using my RPs to carry my SPs is feasible if you have a GREAT collection of dominant RPs. Wong's RP corp is only above average. It is much easier to hit the jackpot on a FA SP early in the season than late. Wong needs to take some chances and fast.

Notes:

I dont feel bad for stealing wong's thunder and taking over. Running a keeper league isnt amateur night and requires a responsible commish to at least spell it KEEPER instead of kepper. The drafting debacle is like an asterisk on the superstar 3B of a $209 million team, in a shiny brand new stadium. I hope that i can still hand off the league for wong to run someday. But right now, he is the inept commish that no one likes to talk about... Gary Bettman.

Young and Stupid (Eray)

Draft (B-):

4 Keepers were Beckett, Pedroia, Reyes, and Crawford. Sounds a little weak but I expect huge bounce back years from crawford and beckett. Beckett has what i call the Al Leiter disease where he alternate dominent and bad seasons. This should be a good season. Say what you want about pedroia, he is the new and improved version of derek jeter. he is born to be a winner. Eray needs big bats and got Quentin #5 who is a solid mvp candidate and keeper candidate. 3B is a weak position this year. Between Quentin and Chipper #6, Adrian Gonzalez, vlad, Dunn, RMart, ichiro, and granderson where drafted in order. Incidentally, there was the HUGE drop off in the quality of bats after chipper. So although i dont really like Chipper Jones cuz of all the injury potential, looking back at who was available the pick is justified. I like Carlos Pena's value to the team.

If i were drafting at the head or tail of a snake draft, you can bet i would be putting pressure on the rest of the GM like Tiger Woods on a NOOB. But eray took the safe and disciplined route and took a pitcher and a hitter at every turn. Nathan #7 started the tier1 closer run. Valverde #10 started a tier2 semi-closer run where Fuentes, Coco Cordero, Wood, and Kevin Gregg went in the 11th and 12th. That lead to Capps #13 who came before tier3 the likes of Scot, morrow, heath, qualls, ziegler, street, and brian wilson. So in terms of quality, i would have to give eray credit for getting the best of each of the 3 tiers.

Offense (D):

I like pablo sandoval but not at #16, not as a full time player for the SF Giants, and not as a 2nd catcher.. I like Tejada mainly because he should be batting behind Lee and Berkman. Doumit at #12 is a little high as well. This is a make or break year for conor jackson because he is borderlining a bust. As for the non-keeper players, there is just not much potential in this lineup. The best and highest potential player on this offense might be Troy Glaus who is on the DL.

Pitching (B):

Solid SP. Joba at #9 is WAY high but i cant fault a die-hard yankee fan for believing Da Hype. I put his over/under win total this year at 10. Unlike his time for the yankees, Javier Vazquez will be great for the Braves. Good closers and good relievers except Corpas. I dont like any colorado reliver every with the exception of taylor buchholz as sp/rp setup guy last year. But he does have the potential to take over the closer role at anytime and Eray has Carlson as backup.

Notes:

Eray participates in the draft, but doesnt do much during the season to be a factor in the standings. Once in awhile he will shake things up and make a trade for the sake of making a trade. He is probably too rich working for Microsoft to care about the state of his team. So his team is the Clippers and he is their owner Donald Sterling.

Qwack Qwack (Meng#1)

Draft (A):

4 superstar keepers plus borderline keeper in Big Papi. I am happy with all my picks (plus ryan madson from gong #26)including the 2 guys i've dropped already Hinshaw #24 and Tracy #26. Hinshaw is really, really good although not good enough to be the primary setup man just yet. Brian drafting Bobby Abreu one pick ahead of me might be a blessing in disguise because i really should invest in a 3B with that pick and brian forced my hand. Against all these so called experts, i would have avoided Chris Davis this year at all cost. He reminds me of Kevin Maas. So it was either Atkin with #8 cuz he wasnt coming back to me in round 9, or wait until #15 or so and roll the dice on some random 3B. Hawpe at #14 is a steal. Despite his terrible April and May last year, he still put up solid numbers and almost .900 ops.

In the past couple of years, i have made a conscience effort to improve my SP drafting skillz. I really wanted to draft Bedard, Verlander, and Ubaldo again at greatly discounted prices. Needless to say my SPs last year were absolute disasters; however i have as much confidence in my SPs this year as yankee fans have in theirs.

Offense (A):

If there is one thing i can do well consistently, that would be being able to assemble a great offense relative to cost. Keeping Ortiz whose UTIL only tag and drafting Granderson CF #6 with my first pick (when i already have Josh Hamilton CF/RF) meant I was handcuffed and would not be able to accomodate Bobby Abreu furthur justify my drafting Atkins #8. Not one weak spot in the lineup and every single slot had a down year last year and/or have the potential to do better this year. Its not often you will find such a perfect blend of value, upside potential, and cost. Actually if you are paying attention, this happens every year when i draft.

In case you missed it during the draft, the question i proposed was...

Q: Where is the best place to hit in baseball? is it Coors? Citizen park? Fenway park? Texas?

A: The slot in front of Manny.

Manny's benecifiaries include Papi in 2003/2004, pedroia, Youk, and most recently Andre Ethier who had a career year in 1/3 of a season batting in front of manny. Andre Ethier is another one of those inflated players i would seriously avoid this year. Orlando Hudson has been a consistent and steady producer for his entire career with little variation... but a career year is coming as he is slated to bat in the #2 hole in front of Manny. He just hit a cycle today so apparently, you CAN teach an O-Dawg new tricks. get it? thats a good one.

Pitching (A-):

For the first time in ages, my closers are shakier than Jeter's knees in the WBC. After one bad outing by brandon lyon, Jim Leyland went black closer over the white one and that really hurt me. I will be in the market for closers at the trade deadline if necessary. But true to my skillz, my relievers are top notch including a potential primary setup in Masterson with sp/rp. My SPs are strong as well. Harden, Wainwright, Lowe, and Wang make a solid front 4 with high % of winning close to 20 games on winning teams. Verlander and Carmona are wild cards but i can back them up in a month with highly capable Duchs and Escobar from the DL.

Notes:

As a baseball and fantasy guru, I have been very successful identifying and predicting the progression of players in terms of talents, skills, and fantasy stats. I try to identify those players who continuously improve on a month to month and season to season basis. On my team, guys like Kinsler, Wainwright, and Masterson fit that bill over various time spans. Specifically, these are players who might not be highly tauted prospects, but with time, they develop additional skills at various stages of their careers in route to being a total package. For the longest time, i could never figure out the term that accurately describe these players. But in a stroke of genius like only i can, i think i've got it... i will call these players MMP which is short for... Mega Man Progression because, like Mega Man, these players get better and acquire new weapons as part of their arsenal as they age. Other MMP candidate include rajon rondo and dwayne wade.

I probably wont be able to participate as much this year mainly because winning is getting a little mundane. Sometimes you just need to take a break and find a new hobby. As the resident 3-peat champion in both h2h and roto, this year I will play the role of Phil Jackson on a break year.

Joint Specialist (Jehming)

Draft (B+): Staying true to last year's strategy, Jehming went right into drafting starting pitching despite my suggestions. (what do i know? i've only won like 10+ baseball titles.) Kept 5 offensive players so he drafted pitching immediately. Meng#2 is extremely high on Billingsley so i will assume he is a good player. I've always like Daisuke because he pitches best when the stake is highest and he never gives in. Ended up with a LOT of the sleepers i like such as Andrus, Kuo, Morales, Sean Green, and Maybin. Salty is intriguing but using a 12th rounder is way too high when there are better C on the board, plus he will prob share time since he cant catch for shit. Semi-wasted 15th on Percival but back it up with Balfour (16th).

Offense (B): Other than the keepers, this infield is shakier than arod's knees in october. But not this past october cuz he didnt get to play. SB has to come from young guys like Andrus, maybin, and span. This team has a good mix of big boppers but personally i think it has too many leadoff hitters and 8th/9th slot hitters to be a dominent. OBP or SLG will probably suffer because of this. I dont know what is more ridonkulous, maybe you guys can vote:

1) Jehming didnt draft an offensive player until the 12th

2) the first offensive player you drafted was a part-time catcher

3) that catcher is Salty

The high grade is based on the moderate-to-tremendous upside potential of the lineup despite the lack of investment in the draft.

Pitching (A+): This pitching staff is fantastic. Top tier closer in Papelbon. All SPs have the potential to be #1 starters and put up stats accordingly. Kuo has the coveted sp/rp tag to pick up holds, K's and good ratios... plus he is TAIWANESE. I feel bad about Joey devine's injury, he has filthy stuff. devine/ziegler/casilla would have been one of the best shutdown bullpen in the league. But percival/devine aside, this staff is fantastic. CC might end up with been the bottom half of this SP staff.

Notes:

I think Jehming is one of the few that actually uses logic common sense when drafting. Unlike other most other GMs, he actually uses the draft to attack the weak spots on his roster instead of doing stupid things like monopolizing a position or overkilling a category. He is also uneffected by closer and reliever runs the past two years. Jehming won last year with one of the uglier final roster. He made all the right moves to win ugly. Doesn't do anything stupid and over-think during the course of the season (game) unlike rest of the coaches. The only thing he is missing is gray hair and a grissly beard to remind of... Greg Popovich.

Matrix (Brian)

Draft (B-):

Considering Brian didnt have 13th thru 15th picks, this team is pretty decent. Brian's draft is as one dimensional as his CF Brett Gardner... seems like he drafted nothing but offense and closers. Best value pick in the whole draft is definitely Abreu in the 8th, but the only problem is that Abreu on this team is overkill. A good GM would trade Abreu to a team that can fully maximize his value. I like Ian Stewart the player but he is without a position. I learned last year that its is almost impossible to predict Clint Hurdle's roster and lineup pattern. During the draft, announcing that the best pick is coming up, then drafting Randy Johnson is a little ridiculous. Thats like at the end of the movie Major League, the catcher guy pointed to bleachers like he is gonna hit a hr like babe ruth then laying down a bunt.

Offense (A+):

Wow, this team is a offensive juggernaut. 6x 100/100 players, 5x potential 30 hr guys, and thats not including ichiro, alex gordon, and a bunch of hispanics named jose, jorge, and lopez. All you need is 45 SB from the jap to be on top of every category. Seriously, why do you need Abreu? Why not trade Abreu for some much needed pitching?

Pitching (B):

I like this pitching staff a lot. This team probably does not have the pitching to win, so it will have plenty of trade chips in terms of closers come trade deadline thus increasing its value. Brian lemme ask you this... are you playing to win the game? should we consider a 8th round and 17th round swap? (Atkins + Wang for Abreu + Unit?) Given your team's setup, I can guarantee you wang will provide more value to your team than abreu. Think about it... Seriously, your #2 is randy johnson.

Notes:

Here is my two cents on Abreu... granted his downward trend due to age, it is uncanny how consistently he can put up fantasy stats. The value of Bobby Abreu is that the standard deviation of his real stats to my predicted stats for him is almost ZERO. To a stats freak, this is like a blood diamond in the rough. Statistically this is nearly impossible (although it is possible that i am really THAT GOOD at predicting baseball stats). I am sad that i didnt get to draft him this year. To me, statistically, there will never be another bobby abreu just like in real life there will never be another michael jordan.

Ok back to reality... Lemme get this straight.

1) You traded away your future and draft picks like nobody's business.

2) You are managing a team that is a juggernaut on offense.

3) Your bullpen includes good shutdown closer(s) and big name setup guys that tend to blow up at any time.

4) The success of your season is contingent on starters that include AJ Burnett, a black SP(CC vs ian snell), an aged lefty who is losing velocity and playing on a 1 year contract (pettitte vs randy johnson).

This is too easy. Brian = Joe Giradi.

Buccos (Buc)

Draft (B+):

No one drafts for value and according to the ESPN Live Draft Results quite like Bucco. He rarely reaches for a player, almost always takes the best available on the board. His inability to think outside the box reminds me of how one of Bill Simmon's readers described how Peyton Manning, while consistently good, could never win the big one vs Belichick. There are plenty of value picks here like beltre, drew, derek lee. But how many players on this roster would be considered "Targeted Players" on anyone's fantasy cheat sheet? I dunno, I feel a little disappointed. I cant knock any of the picks but not once during the entire draft did i feel threatened enough by one of Buc's picks that i had to check his roster. It seems to me like buc just winged it.

Offense (B):

This is like the emsemble of the musical CATS. Its a good play but I have no idea who is the main character and who is suppose to do what? Maybe we will know at the end of the year like at the end of CATS when the fat one goes to heaven. Les Miserable is much more entertaining because it had heroes and villians and characters with defined roles within a story.

The problem with drafting Phillips and Utley last year is that your offensive production is hinged on middle infielders in a year 2B is deep.

The Good: A whole bunch of solid 20+ HR guys. Not much variation, you can predict the outcome relatively easily.

The Bad: Not a whole bunch of upside. Stephen Drew's potential improvement might be canceled out by plenty of potential declines.

Pitching (B)

Halladay is good but no way he can put up an ERA lower than CC's weight in the AL East again. I like chris young, lilly, carpenter, and greinke. All solid but not specatular. Although Greinke and Carpenter has high potential. I dont like Lindstrom though, i would pickup his backup immediately whoever that is. 1.5 closer isnt enough to win the league and you will have to be up there in saves to contend so there is work to be done here. Jeff Bennett at #21 really confused me. i am pretty sure bennett isnt that good unless you know something i dont. I think roster flexibility this early in the season is much more important unless you know your SP/RP is gonna be a primary holds guys.

I have been following the A's the SF Giants quite a bit lately. So here is some scouting report. I am a big fan of Matt Cain, maybe this is the year. Last year the pressure of being listed as a #1 was too much. Having Lincecum and Randy Johnson will definitely help him. But i think the problem with him is that bengie is a TERRIBLE game caller for him. I would not be surprised if Randy Johnson punches Bengie in the face this season.

Ziegler is great but he is not a natural closer. His success is very similar to huston street. When the ump does not call the low strike and he is forced to elevate, trouble will ensue. I thought that last year, he got A LOT, and i mean A LOOOOT, of low strike calls (especially at home) mainly because the ump had no idea how to read the plane the pitches were coming at the plate.You can see similar ball/strike calls with Corey Bradford. He needs the low strike to be successful. Problem with Street wasn't that he lost velocity or location. it was that all the umps stopped giving him the low strike call on balls and the hitters learned to lay off during the offseason.

Notes:

Buc definitely has the talent to compete every year and in every format but he lacks the ability to close the deal come crunch time. The title was Buc's for the taking last year. Although he wound up falling short by a slim margin, he trash talked and bragged about finishing sloppy second like he was the champion. On top of that, no one whines about every little detail/joke like buc. And dont get me started on the bad sportsmanship of QUITTING.

Therefore Buc is our version of Sergio Garcia.

Orix Blue Wave (Kenneth)

Draft (C-):

Everyone knows I am not a big fan of drafting catchers early. Kenneth then followed Soto and broxton with a DL SP, a bust 3B, another corner who had career year, a #9 hitter, and ended with a part time black closer. However starting with #16, the rest of the picks all put up pretty decent numbers... in the minor leagues. I actually wanted to draft Nelson Cruz 2 or 3 rounders earlier but I couldn't risk taking my 3rd Ranger so soon, plus i also wanted to draft Blalock and Andrus later. Nelson Cruz will be good. I like wandy as well. But the rest of the guys are way too young and half of them probably wont get playing time.

Offense (B-):

Infield is strong. I suppose if you add Zimmerman and Huff and average them out, getting somewhere between 80/25/80 and 90/25/90 is reasonable but high end might be too optimistic. I dont know if those stats are worth back to back 11th and 12th round picks. The outfield is so weak, only Nelson Cruz has a full time job aside from BJ Upton. I dont like Jayson Werth. i dont like when these so called fantasy experts like to project half season stats into full seasons and part time player into a full time player. Statsticically that is as illegal and cheap as a crab dribble. Its sad that KC is batting Aviles 9th, he is a good player and deserve the ABs.

Pitching (C-):

Dan Haren is great. The chances are that Cliff Lee will not repeat his career year ever. His reportoire and how he attacks hitters by mixing a straight fastball and a 2-plane breaker reminds me of a yonug barry zito. Lee might sustain a few more good years with declining numbers and ratios unless he comes up with something new. Broxton is a stud. I am sad to say i know nothing about Cahill. I was not very impressed with his first start. Wandy is good but NL Central is full of righty dominated lineups. Thats a little scary. I've been watching him for 3 years and I still dont know what his out pitch is.

Notes:

Kenneth started last year with guns blazing pre All Star Game. The success came fast and furious (the movie #1) then it came crashing down fastly and furiously (the movie #2 tokyo drift). Now he is rebuilding the hard way thru young and highly touted players. Hopefully he will turn out to be like box office superstar Vinn Diesel in the fastest and the most furious the movie #3. But since Kenneth's third installment is still unknown, his path is more similar to that of Michelle Wie.

Dagongsters (Gong)

Draft (A+++):

I laughed so hard when Gong took JJ putz #8; however, I am really surprised when I took a look at gong's roster. He had 5 extra picks in 10th thru 15th and made full use of it. Not one weak slot on the entire roster. I even like the bench players he drafted such as Hafner and Shin-soo Choo aka da Kim-Chi Hammer. But for the sake of nitpicking, I dont like Jiambi pick when you already had Howard and Votto. I like Hafner the bench player but i dont like hafner the draft pick due to the same reason. Those picks just made no sense. Also it seemed a little weird that you drafted Furcal #7 which was good value but then Jeter at #9 immediately after. Problem is that not that you drafted him but that there seems to be a backlash against yankee position players like posada, jeter, cano, matsui, damon, nady. They all dropped significantly in the draft. Although i have to say that the Yankee starters are WAY OVER-VALUED.

Offense (A-):

I like Hank Blalock this year as i do every year, but chances are he will get hurt and disappoint. Again just to nitpick, the jiambi pick or hafner pick or one of your extra picks should have been used on a CI, specifically a backup 3B, which is very scarce this year. Jeter is bad as a fantasy SS but great as a MI and a good backup when furcal gets hurt. I like Votto a lot. He is a much more advanced hitter than Jay Bruce and its not really close, i believe i made that observation last year a month after bruce came up. I hope Ellsbury will have a break out year, hopefully he gets back to playing his game which is to make contact and steal bases. U might need some HRs if and when jiambi/napoli fail their expectations and howard doesnt hit 48 again. Da Kim-Chi Hammer is an interesting proposition. He is definitely better than a platoon/part-time player but he definitely isnt good enough to play everyday. And when you do play him, he is good enough to hit 2nd or 5th but he is much more valuable grinding out ABs and picking up cheap RBIs and to provide speed at the bottom of the order. I compare Shoo to a golf shot from 70 yards away in the middle of the fairway. The green and the pin looks so big that you want to attack the flag. But when I stand over the ball and i have no idea whether i should use a 52 or 56 or pitching wedge. Then once i pick my club, i cant decide whether to half-swing, punch, flop, or pitch. Its all good though cuz its one of those instances in life where i can stay there all day and practice without getting bored.

Pitching (A-):

Solid SPs. Lincecum's publicity around the bay area is ridonkulous. I like Bedard a lot despite him single handedly killing my fantasy team last year. Arrendondo at #12 is way to high but u had so many picks, it doesnt really matter. Getting back to Bengie as a catcher. Bengie's one attribute is that he can consistently call the game with absolute zero logic. His game calling skillz is so against common sense that its so obvious why it works sometimes. Read the previous sentence again and you will be as confused as i am everytime i watch bengie call a game for Matt Cain. On one end of the extreme, it is impossible for a batter to win against the combination of a pitcher with Lincecum's stuff and bengie's complete randomness in pitch selection and location. On the other end, for pitchers like randy johnson, matt cain, and barry zito who need to setup hitters and buy strike 1 and 2 with secondary pitches, he is a bad bad solution that leads to hammer time for opposing offenses.

Notes:

I dont how long gong planned the draft but it is a near flawless draft with a good balance of offense vs pitching, HR vs SB, and value vs potential. I would have to go over every pick and see who was available to be sure. With a roster like this, Gong has my expection to finally deliver a Keeper Championship like a team with a $209 million payroll and a grand new ball park.

3 keys to winning a championship for you (or anyone) is as follows, agree with them or not is up to you:

Manage your saves and holds carefully. u will need to figure out what you need and what you can get at the trading deadline. Most importantly, you will have to figure out at the trade deadline what stats takes to win at least 9 in each category and how get it. Trading draft picks for closers = illusions of a championship. Its not that easy... you have to know what you are doing.
Discipline. Just because you start hot and in 1st place by mid-May doesnt mean you should trade the house and go for it, like what you did last time. Just because you start cold and in last place and trail by 60 points by mid-May doesnt mean you cant compete and win the title, as I proved last year. Dont make traded you dont have to make.
Manage your innings. Last year I produced 1500 ip worth of near-championship stats from a staff comprised of 1 lucky draft pick of Volquez at #25 (~200ip) and relievers, overcoming almost zero or negative production from bedard(#3) and verlander (#5) and dropping Lester and Ubaldo after disastrous early season. I can win championships drafting virtually no pitching because I have formulas to squeeze out more wins, holds, saves, and Ks per inning while holding onto a decent whip/era better than pretty much anyone alive. Its true... its true. While you wont have to be nearly as godly as me, but you will have to efficient. Dont waste your IPs even in April.

Someone will come out as a dark horse to contend (maybe jehming or brian or maybe me if i am into it)... but this team is so much more complete than every other team, i would put the odds as Gong vs the field. In honor of the Masters at Augusta this week... Gong is this week's Tiger Woods vs the field.

Fantasy Baseball Side Wagers

2007-04-06T15:17:00.000-04:00

Baseball 2007:
$x:$y = amount bet by person X to win amount bet by person Y.

M#1 vs M#2

$1:$1 - 4/28/07 - Matt Cain hits allowed over/under 3.5. (M#1: $1-, M#2: $1+)
$1:$1 - 5/22/07 - Lincecum # of k's over/under 7. (M#1: $1+, M#2:$1-)

M#1 vs Brian

$1:$1 - 4/6/07 - Brian drops Pedro Feliz before Meng#1 drops Vidro. (M#1: $1+, BY: $1-)
$1:$1 - 4/6/07 - Meng#1 keeps Vidro until end of April. (M#1: $1+, BY:$1-)
$1:$1 - 4/6/07 - Wes Helms vs Ty Wigginton: first to 25 RBIs. Push if neither hit 25 by end of May.
$1:$1 - 4/9/07 - Pavano lasting 6 ip vs twins. (M#1: $1-, BY:$1+)
$1:$1 - 4/19/07 - Josh Hamilton HR total. Over/under 27.5.

Pool Bets:

$1:$3 - 2007 baseball season - Pick a SP that was non-top10 last year and not ranked in the top10 this year (by both ESPN and Yahoo rankins) that will finish in the top10 at the end of the year by ESPN rankings. M#1 = Haren, M#2 = Cain, Brian=Kazmir. Push if none of them finish top10. If more than 1, higher ranked pitcher wins.

2007 Keeper League - Draft Recap

2007-04-04T18:03:00.000-04:00

2007 Keepers Draft Recap
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This was a very tough year to draft mainly because of 3 reasons.
1) i had to handle wong's team and find meng#2 to handle eray's team;
2) for the first time, SPs were at a premium and SPs is my weakest area;
3) buc's and tey's crappy teams and buc's absence forced both teams to build for the future. there were very few sleeper picks available, thus causing a lot of teams to reach a couple of rounds early to fill out positions.

Typically, i recap by teams and Meng#2 recap by picks... but since Meng#2 isnt doing a recap this year, i will have to do both of our jobs and go with a different format while mentioning best/worst picks by round when they are warranted. and since so many keepers are kept this year and our draft started in the 9th, my analysis on offense will be infield vs outfield and take into account the quality of secondary positions (CI, MI, OF, UTIL) and how they were filled. Pitching will be SP and Bullpen.

I am planning to dismantle my team after this season because winning has become so mundane. So as a special bonus for reading my recap... i will be putting up "**NOTE**" thru out my analysis. These are important draft tips that you weaklings need to pay attention to and incorporate them (sooner better than later) into your fantasy baseball drafting philosophies if you are playing to win. These tips are 200% accurate and non-arguable. Willingness to follow it is up to you.

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Lick My Sack (jay)
Infield (C+): Balance overall offense. i am not high on kent/omar/aurilla/huff combo but they were worth the draft positions. all of these guys are over the hill and then some.

Outfield (B-): Good OF given the draft positions. BGiles at 21st and wilkerson in the 25th are steals. i like all the players here but its way to weak for a OF. When my IF can out-produce your OF plus Util, you have no chance.

SP (B+): two guys i didnt expect to be kept (zito and harangatang) in retrospect were good keepers. i would have taken zito 9th if he was there. Plus carpenter, this is a great 1-2-3.

RP (A-): Jenks is borderline keeper, but picked up saito, shields, broxton, and cla who meng#2 is really high on. extremely underrated and solid pen. may have invested too heavily on bullpen resulting in weak offense.

Comments:
Good top loaded list of keepers, bottom keepers were questionable but excusable, only problem is soriano and bay both playing LF. Pitching MUCH MUCH stronger than hitting. i dont understand how he could have asked to keep felipe on tuesday then not draft him 2 days later.
As some of you know, i am strongly against keeping more than one player with the same position. this team lucked out because Lou wants to play Soriano CF in a year where CF is so weak. in my opinion, jay made a huge, CHAMPIONSHIP KILLING mistake with his first pick in the 9th overkilling CF by taking corey patterson then wasting another on willy tavarez with 13th. CPat/willy as CF/OF is good, but they filling as OF/UTIL by the 13th round is game over. did you know that Soriano is gonna get a CF tag in a week? (**NOTE**: when you fill out your util by the 13th round with some weak hitting 35rbi crap, you can cross yourself off the contender's list if i am in your league.)

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Rockville Yellow Socks (insuk)
Infield (B): this is a very solid infield but i am not high on chavez at all. Ive watched too many A's and Giants game to count and Chavez is still k'ing on pitches that he k'ed on 5 years ago. Stephan drew at MI is pretty good but NL leadoff hitters rarely put up fantasy stats worth their talent. (**NOTE**: only exception to drafting leadoff hitters in the NL is if he is a lock score 110+R AND a lock for 40+ SB+HR. Otherwise pass or wait to draft later as a sleeper.) you might get 150 hrs w/out much speed outta the 7 IF positions which is a little weak.

Outfield (D): i dont know how to grade this outfield. I know insuk likes his young studs... but conceivably although unlikely, pujols/howard/teixeira alone can out-hr this entire OF considering alou and nomar's injury risks and delmon and chris b can be sent down to AAA.

SP (B+): Felix and Bonderman i like. Bonderman struggled early vs the Jays but grinded out a good start. Felix was dealing... but he pitches much better at home than away. Penny was a great pick at 20th. I really dont know much about Loewen but if insuk is so high on this oriole, then he is probably overrated.

RP (B-): Mike Gonzalez at 16th was a great pick definitely insuk's best pick of the draft. My Championship last year cost my 14th and 15th this year otherwise i would have taken him even earlier. Coco Cordero and Fuentes as the top 2 closers are a little weak but servicable as closers were hard to find.
Valverde is way to inconsistent as a closer. how many years did 'zona hand the closer job to him the last 3 years only to have him fail and regain it cuz the other guys suck even more. It's kinda like Torre's decision to bring in Javier Vazquez to relieve kevin brown in 2004 ALCS game 7 because he sucked the least. Anyone remember who torre brought in to relieved Vazquez? whoever it was, that yankee is analagous to brandon lyon who sucks the 2nd least.

Comments:
I was watching the yankees game and elijah dukes hit a solo shot off pavano to CF in da 5th. I think insuk picked him up before duke finished rounding the bases. on the scouting side, dukes seems to be a much more mature hitter than delmon and BJ.
My grades are rarely based on the quality of the player but more on the draft position they were taken. yeah you drafted some good players last year but at too high a cost in terms of draft position thus the poor grades. thats also why you finished like 10th and had no chance of contending.
insuk drafts for value as often as Tom Brady uses condoms. his draft style kinda reminds me of gong 3 years ago. i like how he over draft every single prospect worth drafting and makes himself as some kind of prospect guru as if no one else reads magazines. earth to insuk, you didnt go out on a limb and drafted bonderman, lackey, and felix last year, they were already on everyone's radar. i was high on lackey FIVE YEARS AGO and projected him as a solid #2 back in '02 even before his WS game 7 win. you only got him cuz you overdrafted him last year on a year i finally gave up on him. meng#2 can attest to that. you certainly didnt go out on a limb this year drafting all these guys so lets not pretend you are discovering gems considering the price you paid for them.

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Matrix (brian)
Infield (B): good IF anchored by 2.5 huge bats and all solid players. I am really high on beltre this year. he was one of my sleepers relative to draft position. batting 2nd should loosen him up a bit and make him a better hitter instead of the slugger his contract made him to be. Pedro feliz is a wasted pick. you owe me $1 for dropping feliz before i drop vidro. Ty should get his opportunities but he might be the only cleanup hitter not to reach 100 rbis. solid pick nevertheless.

Outfield (C): great list of players and names but i am not sure what brian is doing. No wonder me and Meng#2 were panicking over the fact that there were no OFs to draft by the 20th round. How many outfields do you need? you dont win fantasy leagues but stashing monroe/HGH jr/$3.29 per gallon on the bench or drafting guys like dellucci. you win by drafting flyers like papelbon as a SP/RP. Grade C reflects you overkilling.

SP (A-): Originally i knocked brian for drafting harden too early but again, in retrospect it was a good pick given the shortage of good SPs. when Johan anchors the staff, you can afford to take a risk with your #2. Escobar at 21 was a good pick if he gives anything more than 160+ip. Funny how me and brian were discussing black pitchers yesterday. (brian wanted to discuss it, i only played along to see what racist thing he will say next.) Ian Snell = black. From tuesday's 12k performance, i dunno if astro's lineup suck that bad or Snell is actually a decent pitcher. We wont know until he faces the likes of Luke Scott.

RP (A+): hands down the best pen in the league. Benitez looks good this spring although velocity is not there yet.

Comments: Definite contender
Unspectacular, but solid draft. Looking at all the picks, not one pick stands out as good or bad. Downside is none of the players have much upside and few will surpass the production from last year. Thome at UTIL was a ballsy pick, i am glad he didnt drop to me for me to make that tough decision. Not knowing that you had tey's 10th was retarded but luckily you got carlos guillen outta it. Josh barfield is hitting 9th, you coulda used one of your OF picks to find a backup MI. This staff is cut from the same championship mold as my staff, more on this later.

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Ball Bags (Fred)
Infield (B): Kept only Rollins but did a GREAT job of drafting based on need. (**NOTE**: it is a GOOD IDEA to draft based on your need!!!) Helton, Teahan, Phillips, then drafted ensberg immediately to backup teahan, and punched AJ late. Picked up FA O-dawg to replace Cantu. Teahan at 11 is high. But Phillips at 13, hitting 3rd between dunn and Griffey is a steal. Swap their draft positions and both become very good picks.

Outfield (A): only team to keep all 4 outfield positions. Drafting Cameron at 12th is very questionable... but I cant give this any less than A since no other picks were wasted on OFs. (**NOTE**: it is a NOT a good idea to overkill your strength.)

SP (A+): well, pretty much i give fred an A+ every year. dropped harden and kept haren which was the right thing to do. You got too many starters but they were all in the late teen's and twenty's so they were worth the cost.

RP (C+): Putz was a great pick for this team despite his MRI. But everything went downhill from there. Salomon as a #2 closer is terrible. no clearcut #1 middle relief is also very bad. But with the league going on MR run around 15th-17th, i'll give you some credit for adapting and drafting gagne/salomon/weathers. They might not be the best choices, but it could have been a lot worse if fred didnt pick em.

Comments:
Saying that Fred sucks at building a bullpen is like saying Yankee announcer John Sterling is a retard. Both are under statements. This team looks good on paper but i am not sure if it has the offense to contend for the entire year. More than a couple of players are gonna have to breakout otherwise you will be short on Runs, HRs, and RBIs. Many candidates include phillips, helton, o-dawg, and cameron cuz all of them are in favorable hitting slots. I think its time to trade oswalt for someone like Utley.

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Buccos (Bucco)
Infield (C-): I like Fielder, Tulowitzki, Castillo, Edwin a lot and had them high on my list. The problem that it was my sleepers list. Prince Fielder was the best pick of the draft though. No fewer than 4 people simultaneously made fun of buc/fielder's weight. We can probably list them here and vote which was the best... mine was directed at insuk's brother "did you accidently sort buc's draft pick by weight???"

Outfield (C-): Sheff and Swisher are solid. I am extremely high on Swisher after watching him the last 2 years. hopefully the A's will come to their senses and hit him 2, or 3 or 4. Duffy, Edmonds, Kouzmanoff are garbage. iwamura looks like a professional hitter. good strike zone, good bat control but he is learning so look for a bigger 2nd half.

SP (B): solid SPs in webb, schmidt, and Jennings is a decent #3. Pitching Webb @Coors is ballsy. I am not so hot on Boof and Daniel Cabrera, or as i like to call him D-Train-Wreck. With Chucky and O-dawg AND Cliff Lee, this staff is quantity over quality, which i heard from gong is the way bucco likes his buffets.

RP (F): First F of the recap. Garbage Dumpster as your #1 closer and luiz/reyes does not cut it as your MR regardless of '06 stats. I should have told you pre-draft to load up on middle relief and closers and use em as trade chips. (**NOTE: if you are not contending, loading up on closers to trade is not a bad idea. Just dont get to greedy when you trade them.)

Comments:
Well, i cant really pick on buc's team too much cuz it wasnt much of a team to begin with. One serious flaw was buc trading his draft picks for potential keeper players such as konerko and webb. Webb i understand because he was top tier in a year every SP in my top 3 tiers were kept. But trading for konerko was an absolute disaster because i ranked him as the 9th-11th best 1b in the league, one notch ahead of #12/13-helton/prince. Instead of keeping only mauer and webb with 100% chance of daisuke, you went to 50-50 by keeping furcal with tey if he keeps 3, to 0% when you traded for konerko. So konerko, cost you a 3rd round keeper pick, a 10th round pick, and daisuke because you won the draft positioning vs tey. Had you done nothing and kept 2, you would have easily wound up with Mauer, Webb, Daisuke, Furcal, Konerko, Sheff, Swisher, Schmidt, Fielder, Kendrick in that order. That's why i hated the trade when it was announced. We might not see the likes of daisuke as a FA in the keeper rounds in some time. You let him get away by over manuvering.
(**NOTE**: Evaluate your trades not only by the player/picks you get but more importantly in terms of opportunity costs. I made this point in year #1 with Meng#2 keeping Vernon. Sure, vernon was a borderline keeper with star potential. But by keeping him, you lose the ability to choose at that position. in a lot of cases, CHOICE and flexibility has more value than the player you are keeping/getting. Think about buc trading for konerko again in terms of opportunity cost... what is he really giving up? there is no way in the blue hell does the cost justify the reward of getting konerko. i wouldnt trade for konerko if there is even a remote chance that it might drop my daisuke% from 100% to 50%.)

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Patsies (Jinwook)
Infield (B): i am lukewarm about this IF drafting-wise. Its solid but dont have much youth or speed. Tada has nada upside. I am not sure where peralta is at. I've seen the chisox ibb the guy in front of him to load the bases with 1 out and man on first twice already. Thats just a lack of respect, probably for a reason. Chipper could be a question mark, adrian seems a little high at 11th but very good as a CI. Best pick goes to Chad Tracy could be just as good stats in the 18th.

Outfield (B): again all solid players. I am not high on granderson, he K'ed 178 times last year. i dont see how anyone could succeed like that. Hawpe might be platooning with jeff baker but 15th is fair. Not enough HR/RBI pop. Josh Willingham looks good.

SP (B+): Invested heavily on SP but well worth it. This is the year Chris Young makes a Haren-like leap into the 2nd tier. I like Rich Hill as well. Seems like there are a lot of young lefties this year. Lowe will always eat up good quality innings. But any way i look at it, the SPs seems to be one man short. drop a bat and pick up a SP.

RP (F): Keeping Hoffman was good. Neshek was high on a lot of people's MR lists and getting him at 20th was a great pick. Lidge aint gonna cut it as closer or MR.

Comments:
Made some good pitching picks in a wife beater, one of the chris youngs, a lefty who was dominating for half a season, an old gambler who gambled on some pine tar, and a 2004 world champ. But offense just dont have enough bite and with no bullpen, there is no chance. But this is a top team among the 2nd tier.

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I'm in Myanmar (Wong, drafted by Meng#1)
Infield (A): This was a easy infield to draft. Considering Glaus and Billy Hall both of position flexibility. Chris burke is only a fill in until lopez gets his 2B tag. Then potentially wong can have Posada, Jiambi, Lopez, Glaus, Hanley, Hall, and Laroche. Great job of drafting by me to take advantage of position tags.

Outfield (B+): Wong kept no OF so i had to draft some early. Ibanez and Cuddzilla are good picks and will probably put up better stats than guys drafted a couple of rounds earlier. I decided to go late on CF because of Hall's eligibility. It might be be better to put Hall at CF and find a servicable MI. I thought kearns was a good pick at 20th since he is cleanup up and protecting ryan zimmerman. Hafner will balance out his %.

SP (A-): It was easy to draft for wong because he already had 2 top guns in Halladay and Smoltz. Since wong was so short in OF, I didnt have the picks to use on SP. So i went with value and picked veterans on good teams that could get wins and eat up some innings with decent ratios and Ks. Pettitte, Glavine, and Maddux were great picks in their respective rounds for what i was trying to do. (**NOTE**: If you wanna win, ALWAYS draft for value in your strong areas so you can afford to reach for a couple of players early to cover your weaknesses. If you dont make enough value picks in the mid and late teen rounds while reaching in 9th-11th, your team might look good on paper, but you aint gonna win.)

RP (A-): On paper, this is a top 3 pen in the league which is a huge advantage considering some of the crappy pens out there. So far this pen's performance is pretty dismal, i cant explain why other than bad luck. I was under specific instructions from wong to pick a #2 closer early (chris ray). Its not my fault ARod fluked out and Chris Ray loaded the bases with 2 outs. JoBo at #14 is a steal. Some questions why i chose linebrink over otuska (i drafted otuska for myself 2 picks after drafting linebrink for wong). First Wong had linebrink last year and he did well. Second, Otsuka could put up saves instead of holds and wong didnt need saves.

Comments: Contender
I probably prepared for Wong's draft more than my own. Pretty much everything went according to plan except i told wong i was gonna forfeit the 2B position and take a flyer later. But Felipe Lopez was too tempting to pass up at 10th. OF is a little weak but you cant complain since it was not easy to find FOUR good OFs at specific positions cuz Hafner took up the Util. Overall offense is very balanced in all 6 categories. Overall pitching is also very balanced. Wong couldnt draft a team as good as this one i drafted if you give him 10 tries. Top 3-4 team. Typical Wong to over manage and drop Mora for some crap in the combination of ethier, thomson, stanton, and greg norton just so he can fill his DL slots.

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idunnobaseball (Tey)
Infield (C-): Not the greatest of IFs. But lots of decent picks here. Contrary to almost all experts, i think uggla will do decent this year. Sophomore slumps or not, if you hit between hanley and upside, how badly can you do? i like a kinsler pick as well, although i expected him to bat higher than 9th. Freddy Sanchez is a steal at 15th, BoSox once traded Freddy Sanchez & mike gonzalez for... anyone know? Michael Barrett i hate. he is the type of hitter that will have 2x 10 rbi weeks and still end up with 50 rbis for the season.

Outfield (B+): Rios and Baldelli in the keeper rounds were good, but not great. I really hope rocco stays injury-free so we can see what he can do. I was expecting Rios to last to the 9th but it was unlikely he was gonna drop to me picking 11th. Trading for Dye was terrible because it was unnecessary. dunn, rocco, dye, and Rios make a great 4 with keeper potential. You should be able to scalp a Util if shealy fails.

SP (B+): Daisuke came as a result of a titanic blunder by buc. Great job drafting Lackey, who should have been kept, one pick ahead of Meng#2. I think Beckett will bounce back well. last year he was pavano-like in that he always got into that bad inning he couldnt get out of. Hopefully he learns and use his breaking stuff more. Funny how it seems like ages ago when he was considered a top young pitcher. I like Josh Johnson at 24th, hopefully he will be able to start pitching in 2 month. The B+ is for picking up not one but TWO(!!!) almost definite keeper SPs next year in DiceK and Lackey although both kinda fell into your lap.

RP (B+): Keeping nathan was good, so was drafting the underrated wickman. picked up a jamie walker as a solid 5th reliever. But Cordero at 9th is way too early. And i dont like the Ryan Madson pick at all. That guy is just a terrible, terrible pitcher. I am not surprised da braves cracked this guy like an egg. Just to throw a comparison, i would much rather have JC Romero and/or Joel Pinata than this guy and as you guys know, i am not a big fan of JC and joel pin.

Comments:
You guys have NO IDEA how hard i worked behind the scenes to get Alex Gordon drafted in the keeper rounds, aka 10 rounds too early. i deserve a lot of credit. If only i had a better draft position to take advantage... It was kinda weird seen Shealy on TV. My triple autograph of Hanley had shealy on it... they must've messed up the picture on the card because i thought he was black for the past 3 years. In my notes for beckett, i had "draft one round early, instead of one round late." i think he could be the yankee-killer the whole world wants him to be. Overall, i think tey did a really good job drafting and rebuilding AND getting a lot of chips (relievers) to trade at the deadline. His team is on the way up via some horredous gaffes by other GMs.

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Six Trick Pony (Meng#2)
Infield (B): This team is loaded at 1B with howard, teix, and berkman. But the IF is surprisingly "Week." There is no reason to draft Weeks that early at all. I am not sure how to project crosby, DeRosa, weeks, youk's hr/rbi, and piazza's games played. Youk is a good pick at 14 cuz he will probably score 100R and .400+obp, a rare combination. Piazza at 13th is the best pick. You gotta love those 1B/DH type guys with C tag. He will be great in oakland. That HR to right-center vs KRod of all people was truly amazing.

Outfield (D): Nick Markasis at 7th?? i had him going as a sleeper maybe 100 picks later. His current stats are inflated greatly by crappy ass yankees pitching. you better hope Berkman will retain his RF tag for next year. Markasis 7th, torri 12th, OF and Kotchman = Util from the FA, this outfield kinda sucks... wtf happened?

SP (A++): Zambrano and Cain are studs. Cain still has a lot of learning to do. Giants getting Zito thus pushing Cain as #2 will be great for him. He is not ready to be a staff ace just yet. His time will come. I was shocked to see Hamels going 6th. Then i was just as shocked to see how good he was in his first start vs the braves. i mean WOW(!!!), i havent seen SO MANY professional hitters that LOST since the yankees offense vs 1-pitch-derek-lowe in 2004 ALCS Game #7. seriously, its a fair comparison, this time is not a joke. Hamels is that derek-lowe-series-clinching good. Potentially 3 Ace keepers next year plus schilling and olsen, this is as good a starting staff as Meng#2's OF is bad. I dont know how Meng#2 does this every year... incredible staff again.

RP (B-): Ended the draft with Jorge Julio as the #1 closer which is a little on the ridiculous side, but had top setup guys rafael and crain. I like brewer relievers a lot, so Matt Wise was a Wise pick. Henry owens is decent pickup. i cant choose which pen is worse, the phillies or this one. all i know is that the phillies pen is all about HEART which is more than what i can say about Meng#2's RPs.

Comments:
i cant believe the 3 keeper picks were hamels, markasis, and WEEK-sauce. Also the choice of keepers was whack. It is really hard to keep essentially 3x 1B and 2x SP and put together a solid team without a 9th. First team ever to start the season with no closers. So many reaches on this team, i dont know where to start. (**NOTE**: Lesson as always... "You reach, I teach")

As I am writing, hamels is dueling John da Maine Event at Shea. Most lefties that use the fastball/changeup combo try to throw the fastball in to setup the changeup away to righties or vice versa. From the 2 starts so far, hamels has the ability to pitch normally and also the opposite with the fastball outside and the changeup in. The control on his changeup is impeccable so far. Hitter swing over it like a randy johnson slider half the time. Then i saw something i dont think i've ever seen before today's game... moise alou striking out looking while getting his KNEE BUCKLED on a Hamels changeup inner half. he was so ashamed that he looked straight down all the way back to the dugout. that was almost as funny as randolph pitching to howard and had Burgos challenge him with a fastball with 2 strikes.

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DaGongsters (gong)
Infield (B+): Good IF on paper with a lot of big names. But Jacobs/Conor 1B combo is a little fishy. pudge at 19th was a good pick until i drafted martin right after. Plenty of guys that can steal but only Aramis with +35hr potential. Freel is a good fantasy player, but the impact on him on this team will be minimal, given the SB abilities of jeter, roberts, beltran and byrnes. In fact, his % might even hurt you.

Outfield (B): yeah, potentially this OF could be good. Banking on 2x unproven #2 hitters in Loserino and duncan sounds like a decent idea, until you realize you are also banking on bonds' health and byrnes' recklessness. There is a reason why byrnes has never played a full season. In addition to hideki's wrist, now he is got a gimpy leg. 5 slots and 4 question marks. If one goes down like matsui, you might be ok. If two go down, whats the backup plan? If three go down, your dream of beating me is over.

SP (A-): No one exceptional, yet much like my staffs in the past, this staff is BOTH quantity and quality. I like this staff a lot, because this is my style of SPs. I like all of his pitching picks for both SP and RPs, except dotel. Best pick is 11th Ervin Santana.

RP (B+): Street, Zumaya, and drafted todd jones at a fair price. Dotel is a wasted pick... Justin Speier is a great pickup but 4 games 6ip after 1 week? no way he can keep up the pace.

Comments:
Gong is your typical wishy-washy GM where his deals would hinges on him trading up a 20th pick to get a 19th, in other words draft 230th instead of 240th. Do you know how much extra work that is for da commish to handle? Remember 4-5 years ago, Gong used to draft crazy like insuk? But i think Gong has come a long way since we first started fantasy baseball. I have been training him to beat me for 3 years now including giving him my notes, telling him how to stash players to flip for picks to make a run, and persuade him not to trade present (beltran+pick) for the future (sizemore). This might finally be his year. Therefore, it is only fitting that i take at least 75% of the credit for the team he assembled this year. Look at the order of players he drafted, in particular his staff and the veteran positional players. its almost if pupil is ready to take down the master.

Ok, all the non-sense aside, gong's team still has a long way to go. I like how Gong trash talks me about whether if my offense can run with his after one week. Please, can you really beat me with only 2 35+ HR guys in your lineup? Outta 14 players you have, 9 of em probably wont hit 20 hrs. God forbid aramis, beltran, or bonds get hurt. Yeah you got a ultra superior team because of your extra 9th and 10th and i lost my 14th and 15th. I guess i have my work cut out for me to try to run with you. Thank goodness i am a superior GM because i always make the right moves and pressure my opponents to take unnecessary RISKEs.

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2x Defending Champ (Meng#1)
Infield (A++): Brian did not like my russell martin pick at 19th but i think that might be one of my better picks in the draft. Not one catcher was drafted in a better round than the 19th i took martin in, keepers included. He has the highest potential outside the top 3 C's. Vidro and Helms were questionable but they are my MI/CI. I turned my CI from a weakness to a strenth faster than you can say "KEVIN KOUZMANOFF" with pickups like Blake, Nady, and Edwin.

Outfield (B+): I had to invest a little heavier on SPs this year and without my 14th and 15th, my OF suffered quite a bit. Francoeur migth have been a reach at 9th but he was the best RF with the highest upside, 30/95 is almost a lock and he promised to show his SB skills this year. My weakest and thinnest position is CF coco crisp but 16th was not too shabby. anything in the neighborhood of 70/15/70/15 is good enough for me. I am just loaded at LF/RF with blake, nady, hart, and luke.

SP (B+): It is really hard to be impartial about my SPs when i used so many high picks on them. But i think overall it went according to plan. I was going to pick a RF no matter what in the 9th, then go with SPs until it was not worth it. Papelbon moving to closer really handcuffed me in this draft. i really didnt want to keep 2 closers. But CC, bedard, mousse, arroyo are realiable top 4. Gorzelanny has really good stuff. Anibal has sentimental value. I watched all 6's first starts, none pitched nearly as badly as the stats showed.

RP (A+): I would rank my RPs a small notch behind Brian's RPs. Papelbon was picked 20th last year. This year: 17th = rincon, 26th = turnbow, 13th = akinori. Timlin will be primary setup in 2 weeks tops. Drafting a bullpen is where i shine.

Comments: Top 2 team
Going back to my earlier point about drafting for value in the later rounds allows you to reach in the earlier rounds. Key to my success in both h2h and roto is that i know how to build a bullpen at a cheaper price infinitely better than anyone else in the league. Pretty much it gives me more bullets to fire to hit a stud in my other positions namely SP and OF. (**NOTE**: Figure out what you are good at drafting in terms of value ahead of time. Spend on your weak areas so you can lean on your strength later in the draft.)

Another thing i am good at is find that one or two players that no one has heard about and filling my roster with them. Funny how gong thinks my offense cant run with his when my 26th could hit more HRs than 70% of his roster. Homie dont play that.

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IntroToSml (Eray drafted by Meng#2)
Infield (B): Zimmerman is a rising star with his 47 doubles last year, too bad the Capitals are so bad. Kenji at 13th was a little high. Reneteria is a terrific 2nd hole hitter for the braves. Ray durham is a steal at any round as long as he doesnt leadoff. Cano i thought was a borderline keeper. he is not much better than uggla, weeks, lopez if he stays hitting 9th. atkins put up some monster numbers last year. should be good again this year.

OutField (A): two huge keeper sluggers in Lee and Andruw. Added "dont call him big skirt" Frank thomas 14th. normally i dont like Util only players but the 3 this year hafner, thome, thomas were all worth drafting. 3 big bats plus a underrated (but overdrafted in the 9th) jd drew and roberts for steals. very very very good OF. weird how meng#2 drafted 2 extremely opposite OFs. This OF is GREAT!

SP (A-): 3 power arms in sheets, kazmir, AJ. I've always like venti capuano. something about kazmir scares me though. Quality arm AJ burnett might be the 2nd biggest steal in SP trailing only jeff francis in the 25th. Check out Francis' home/away splits last year... his k/ip, bb/ip and hits/ip were nearly identical home and away. Given his good 4.00 era away equated to a 50-50 record given that the rockies cant hit. 4.30 home = 3-2 win -loss. pretty cool split. He is a great young pitcher. again, a great staff drafted by meng#2.

RP (D+): i cant believe meng#2 drafted two crappy bullpens, his had jorge julio as the only closer and this one has tom gordon. Qualls got lucky and got bumped to setup cuz lidge sucks so bad. fernando rodney i like. rest of the arms are replaceable. i have always drafted guys like ricardo rinco and da rheal deal cormier for their one out holds. enjoy it while it last before they blow up.

Comments:
Moving down to 6 keepers will probably suit this team better. it will be interesting to see where andruw goes for his FA. i dont get how meng#2 can draft 2x A SPs and 2x failing bullpens. although he probably drafted better for eray than for himself. guys like delgado, thomas, and thome is another reason why buc trading for konerko is so bad.

Stick a Fork in It....They're Done!

2006-08-21T18:48:00.000-04:00

Buster's List

2006-07-20T20:13:00.000-04:00

Buster Olney’s blog is a joy every morning with a cup of coffee and a bacon egg and cheese sandwich. But this is the second time he has raised the taint of award winners in the last two months. In speaking of Bonds:

For the record, I will vote for him, and all of the best players from the Steroid Era. As I've written before, I don't see the logic in not voting for stars whose steroid use has been scrutinized while voting for other stars who I strongly believe took steroids but got a pass. I believe, but can't prove, that 75 to 80 percent of the major awards won since 1988 have been won with the help of performance-enhancing drugs.

The first time he mentioned it, I forgot to blog about it. The number 75% seems awfully high even accounting for Bonds' 7 MVPs. 75% means exactly 3 out of every 4 award winners are guilty of using PEDs. Think about that for a second. This time, armed with list of award winners in hand, I’m ready to figure out exactly who Buster THINKS is guilty of PEDs. The list I came up with? A little surprising, but not shocking, except for one big surprise.

I am proceeding under two conditions:

First, I’m assuming Buster is not referring only to MVPs; he would stated MVPs if he were. Instead, he uses “major awards.” Whether or not Buster means to include Cy Youngs or Cy Youngs and ROYs is uncertain, but it certainly includes the pitchers.

Second, having no firsthand information about any of these players, I am not ready to start saying any of them used steroids. On the other hand, I am totally ready to say with near certainty who didn’t use steroids. Basically, I’m eliminating 25% and allowing the other 75% to reveal themselves. Using this process of elimination, we arrive at a list of names.

In the 18 full seasons since 1988, there have been a total of 72 MVPs and Cy Youngs, 2 per league per year. 25% of them (18), according to Buster, have not used PEDs. In my opinion, these are the obvious ones:

Greg Maddux
Tom Glavine
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson

Okay, you say, that’s only four guys. True, I say. But these guys won every single NL Cy Young Award between 1991 to 2002, with the exception of 1996 when it was won by John Smoltz. Add the two AL Cy Youngs by Pedro and another by Unit, we’re already up to 14 total awards, leaving only 4 awards not tainted by PEDs, again, according to Buster. I’m ready to throw a few more names out there who I’m pretty sure have not used PEDs:

Dennis Eckersley
Ken Griffey Jr.
Ichiro
Johan Santana

Eckersley won both the AL MVP and Cy Young in 1992, the two hitters each won the AL MVP once, and Johan won the AL Cy Young in 2004. That takes care of 5 more awards, bringing our total number up to 19, more than 25% of the awards won since 1988.

The choice of these 8 players is entirely arbitrary by my own standards, based only on what I know of PEDs and the body types of the players. The one thing all these players have in common is that they’re generally on the lanky side. Admittedly, this is extremely biased. But using the list of award winners and Buster’s guideline of 75%, these are the players in which I would be most confident saying they had not used PEDs.

Everyone else? Guilty, according to Buster Olney. Here are the hitters, in order of number of awards won, with some in bold, for obvious reasons:

Barry Bonds – 7
Alex Rodriguez – 2
Juan Gonzalez – 2
Frank Thomas – 2
Albert Pujols
Jeff Kent
Chipper Jones
Sammy Sosa
Larry Walker
Ken Caminiti
Barry Larkin
Jeff Bagwell
Terry Pendleton
Kevin Mitchell
Kirk Gibson
Vladimir Guerrero
Miguel Tejada
Jason Giambi
Mo Vaughn
Cal Ripken
Rickey Henderson
Robin Young
Jose Canseco

And let's throw these guilty pitchers under the bus too:

Roger Clemens – 5 (since 1988; 7 total Cy Youngs, 1 MVP)
Chris Carpenter
Eric Gagne
John Smoltz
Doug Drabek
Mark Davis
Bartolo Colon
Roy Halladay
Barry Zito
Pat Hentgen
David Cone
Jack McDowell
Bob Welch
Bret Saberhagen
Frank Viola

Holy crap! You put all these guys together, you’d have quite an All-Decade team.

The surprise? Not A-Rod, Ripken, or Bagwell. Not Zito nor Halladay. Roger Clemens? Am I surprised that he might have done PEDs, or rather, that Buster thinks he might have done PEDs? Nope, not really. I don’t really care one way or another and it certainly doesn’t change my opinion of him. The surprise is this: Because Clemens, along with Randy Johnson, has won the most awards outside of Bonds since 1988 (6.9% to be exact), assuming the cast of innocents I proposed is accurate, the 75% figure Buster uses must necessarily include him. Either way, Clemens figures prominently in the discussion.

If you don’t believe me, here are your various options, among many, with regards to those who did or did not use PEDs:
a. Randy Johnson did, but Clemens did not;
b. Pedro AND Glavine did, but Clemens did not;
c. Pedro AND Eckersley did, but Clemens did not;
d. Maddux AND Johan did, but Clemens did not;
e. Eckersley, Junior, Ichiro and Johan ALL did, but Clemens did not; or,
f. Clemens did PEDs.

You tell me which is the most likely scenario.

****
I was going to do a list for the ROYs as well, but have gotten too hungry to do so. If I have time, maybe I’ll get around to it at a later date.

****
All in all, I think Buster’s reiteration of his belief that 75% of award winners since 1988 have been aided by PEDs borders on irresponsible journalism. He is inviting everyone of his readers to look up this list and figure out for ourselves who we THINK Buster THINKS might have done PEDs. This in and of itself is not such a terrible thing. I for one had a lot of fun wasting away my time this afternoon. Unfortunately for Buster, he has now inserted himself into the steroids discussion as a story and an active participant, rather than an unbiased observer. All he’s done turn up the speculation machine another dial.

Then again, Buster is paid by ESPN not just for reporting the news, but also for his opinions, and this is especially true for the purposes of a blog. And I suppose doing it his way is better than coming out with unsubstantiated statements with no evidence that I, Buster Olney, believe so and so did PEDs. I just wish he had given me more accurate parameters to work with!

A double-edged sword, I guess. On the one hand, he is telling us what he believes (good), and on the other hand, he is being so vague about it that he has basically implicated just about everyone (bad). There is one thing I am nearly certain of though, more so than Pedro not having used PEDs. And that’s Buster went over this list as carefully as I have and that 75% number he's come up with is no accident. And if he’s right, the whole steroids thing is sadder than I could have imagined.

Young Guns, Update

2006-07-18T22:21:00.000-04:00

Back in May, the number of quality young starters in their first or second year in the league was impressive. The list back then was headed by Kazmir, Liriano, and Anthony Reyes. Now in the middle of July, the majority on that list still enjoying good success, and two of them are actually leading their respective leagues in ERA (Josh Johnson is 1.2 innings short of qualifying for the ERA title as of tonight). Incredible. Here's a rundown of how that original list of eleven is doing:

Boof Bonser
2-2, 35.2Ip, 27K, 5.30ERA, 1.46WHIP
Didn't pitch that bad, but currently back in the minors. The 27-12 K-BB ratio isn't bad, but the 9 HRs allowed were.

Taylor Buchholz
6-7, 101.2IP, 71K, 5.31ERA, 1.17WHIP
Started the year on fire, had a stretch of three bad starts, then found his groove again. His ERA is very high for such a good WHIP. More than 50% of his hits and walks allowed have come around to score, an astounding figure. It could be bad luck, bad mechanics from the stretch, or bad makeup. Too soon to tell. The 17 gopherballs allowed contributes to a lot of it.

Matt Cain
6-6, 97.1IP, 85K, 4.90ERA, 1.36WHIP
Has been Jekyll and Hyde all year, as likely to throw a one-hitters as he is to not last until the 5th. The good sign is that after a bullpen demotion to work on mechanics, he has lowered his ERA from 7.04 on May 10. The other piece of good news is that he's only allowed one HR since then too. He needs to learn to manage his pitch counts a lot better.

Scott Kazmir
10-7, 121.2IP, 129K, 3.40ERA, 1.32WHIP
He's now a bona fide ace. Having that record in the brutal AL East on that team is outstanding. If he were still in New York, they'd put him on a cereal box by now. He and Liriano will have to carry me to the overs with #1.

Anthony Reyes
2-3, 40.0IP, 31K, 3.83ERA, 1.13WHIP
A teammate of Prior in college, which one do you think the Cubs would rather have right now? He can throw all of his pitches and seems pretty bright in the head. Somehow reminds me of Mussina way back when he was young: a smart, polished college pitcher with a decent fastball and good command.

Jeff Francis
7-8, 115.1, 76K, 3.98ERA, 1.27WHIP
Looked like another Rockie pitcher bust a year ago, but has improved a lot this year. Haven't seen him pitch much, but has managed to allow only 101 hits this year. I don't know if he can maintain that without striking out more guys. But the Rox must be ecstatic with their quadtuplets of Francis, Cook, Jennings, and Kim.

Josh Johnson
8-5, 90.2IP, 80K, 2.48ERA, 1.31WHIP
Has one of the five best curveballs in the NL this year. Projects as an ace if he can lower his walks a little. The Marlins staff should be pretty awesome next year if they manage to keep Dontrelle.

Zach Duke
6-8, 122.1IP, 70K, 5.15ERA, 1.60WHIP
Not looing so hot after a brilliant rookie year. Gary Gillette has more on the struggles of Duke, Oliver Perez, and Paul Maholm. Incidentally, Tom Gorzelanny has gotten shelled in his last two starts.

Mike O'Connor
3-6, 80.1IP, 50K, 4.59ERA, 1.34WHIP
After not allowing more than 3 earned runs in his first 9 starts and a total of 4 HRs, has allowed 5 earned runs and 2 HRs in each of his last three. He has only mediocre stuff, but Mark Redman has been around a long time as well.

Francisco Liriano
11-2, 102.0IP, 115K, 1.94ERA, 0.95WHIP
Er...

Robinson Tejeda
1-3, 19.1IP, 15K, 9.78ERA, 2.17WHIP
Serious control issues got him banished. Nothing currently suggests he'll be more than a fringe reliever if and when he returns to the majors.

These results are mighty impressive. Even more impressive is that another batch of pitchers have come on strong. Their numbers have increased to a point where I do not recall a year in which so many good young pitching prospects are immediately blossoming into top of the rotation starters and/or dominant relievers. This time I'm going to put down another eleven. Some of them should have made the list to begin, but I only focused on starters who had pitched that particular weekend. Not a smart idea for posterity's sake. Only rookies are invited to this party. In order of impressiveness, with an emphasis on the first three:

Jonathan Papelbon
49.0IP, 49K, 0.55ERA, 0.71WHIP, 28 saves
I'm beginning to wonder if the Sox are better off keeping him as the closer.

Justin Verlander
11-4(T-2nd in AL), 117.2IP, 75K, 2.83ERA (3rd in AL), 1.14WHIP
Any other year, he's a unanimous ROY. This year, I doubt he gets one first place vote. Okay, maybe one from the local sportswriters. But then there's his teammate...

Joel Zumaya
45.1IP, 56K, 2.58ERA, 1.15WHIP, 21 holds (1st in AL)
The Tigers and Leyland weren't kidding when they said in spring training Verlander and Zumaya were going to be major contributors this year. Little Z has only blown three leads this year.

Three others that should be in the majors for good, near the top of their rotations:

Jon Lester
5-0, 2.38ERA, 1.43WHIP

Jered Weaver
6-0, 1.12 ERA, 0.74WHIP

Chad Billingsley
1-2, 3.66ERA, 1.73WHIP

The rest of the pack, all with very good potential, all things considering:

Ricky Nolasco
Mike Pelfrey
Scott Olsen
Cole Hamels
Elizardo Ramirez

Ballpark Review - Shea Stadium

2006-07-15T14:31:00.000-04:00

The good things about Shea? It's 10 minutes from home and the Mets are good this year. The bad things about Shea? Pretty much everything else. As a kid not knowing any better and having visited nowhere else, I had thought Shea was just an average major league park. Having been to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and their new stadiums in the last two years, Shea is like the bathroom of the dive bar with two dollar pitchers in a college town after a Friday night. What a dreary place to start my endeavor to visit every major league stadium before I turn 30. At least my sales taxes are going towards the construction of a new facility.

Stadium Facts.
123-01 Roosevelt Avenue, Flushing NY 11368
Opened April 17, 1964
Capacity 55,601
Prices and Seating, depending on game dates and opponents:
Inner Field Level $40-$70
Outer Field Level $32-$50
Loge Box $32-$75
Loge Reserved $27-$45
Mezzanine Box $32-$50
Upperdeck Box $19-$33
Upperdeck Reserved $5-$22

Features.
-Picnic area beyond LF bleachers
-Giant hi-def digital display by Sharp
-Big Apple that emerges when the Mets hit a HR

On-Field Product.
Omar Minaya has done a great job in the last two years rebuilding a team that had accomplished very little since its 2000 Subway Series appearance. The Mets currently have one of the most exciting teams in the league, with a good mix of decade long stars (Pedro, Glavine, Wagner, Delgado, Beltran), young superstars (Reyes, Wright), solid middle tier players(LoDuca, Trachsel, Sanchez, Heilman, Nady), and a couple of top prospects who are expected to contribute to the team in the very near future (Milledge, Pelfrey). With a weak National League and the anticipation of a new park to revitalize the fan base, the Mets are currently and should be for a long time the class of the division and the league. For the next five years, this might be the best team in all of baseball. Just imagine if Rick Peterson hadn't gotten Kazmir traded.
Grade: A+

Neighborhood.
There are no restaurants, bars, and or any sign of nightlife within the immediate vicinity of Shea. In their place lie salvage yards, a U-Haul storage, and an intersection of three major highways. Put simply, this may be the terriblest location for a baseball stadium. (Well, until I visit Yankee Stadium that is. I just cant find a sale on bulletproof vests.) The only saving grace from a failing grade is a 15 minute walk or one subway stop away from the center of Flushing, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the world. Restaurants, bars, and karaokes are aplenty, the majority of which are open until 2am or later. The prices are ridiculously cheap for New York, and you can find just about anything you'd want to eat. Except probably a big juicy T-bone steak.
Grade: C-

Vibe.
A 40 year-old stadium, Shea was constructed as a multipurpose, cookie-cutter park that dominated the stadiums of the same era where functionality trumped all other considerations, i.e., Cinergy Field, Three Rivers Stadium, Veteran's Stadium, Candlestick Park. Along with the Metrodome and the Oakland Coliseum, Shea remains the last bastion of parks built with an utter lack of distinctiveness, character, or history. It really is just a collection of seats, bathrooms, concession stands, escalators, and walking ramps, all surrounding a baseball field. At least it's functional. Barely. And the view beyond centerfield was... breathtaking.
Grade: C-

Entertainment.
The Mets hold a good number of promotions throughout the season, ranging from the typical fireworks and bobblehead nights, to the atypical Pedro Martinez mousepad giveaway. The most interesting among their promotions are the Heritage Theme Nights, where an ethnicity or cultural group is featured and noted for their contributions to the community, and lighthearted cultural entertainment takes place before or after the game. These theme nights, while not always particularly exciting, are pretty appropriate given that New York, and Queens especially, is a huge melting pot of cultures and ethnicities. The calender this year includes Greek Night, Merengue Night, Pakistani-American Night, Jewish Heritage Night, Italian Day, Taiwan(!) Night, and the all important Oktoberfest taking place, incidentally, in September.

#1 and I visited Shea on the evening of July 7, which turned out to be Korean Night. Outside the stadium (we did not make it inside the park prior to the game), we saw various performers of taekwondo and Korean drums, as well as other activities. In addition, we each received a pair of Thunderstix, touting kimchee as the "Korean fermented food." I'm not kidding.

I'm not a fan of Thunderstix as they are incredibly annoying and should remain in Anaheim where they started, if at all. But the good people at Shea mostly had the good sense not to use them. However, even more annoying was the public address announcer playing some silly game between every half inning. One or two or even three per game is fine. We certainly did not need 15 of them throughout the game. Baseball itself is entertaining, playing music trivia on the Jumbotron is not. The one mildly attractive feature was the Kiss Cam, where the camera zooms in on a couple and have them kiss on the big screen in front of 45,000 fans. I kept waiting for the following two scenarios: 1. a brother and a sister, and 2. two ridiculously hot women. I got neither. If I got option 2, this grade would definitely be bumped to a B+/A-. If we combined options 1 and 2 and had two hot sisters, this grade would be an A.
Grade: B-

Sightlines.
Having been to Shea many times, I can say that the only good seats are those in the field level and the loge boxes. The mezzanine and the upperdeck boxes are a little better than mediocre, and everywhere else is well below average. In the loge and mezzanine, high flyballs and popups are obstructed by the overhang of seats above, and in the upperdeck, all flyballs and popups look the same. Thankfully, the stadium architects of today have figured out that baseball watched from the upperdeck is not enjoyable at all and seem resolved to build three-tiered stadiums rather than four-tiered ones. This is a good thing.

On a personal note, a pet peeve of mine was worsened on this particular visit to Shea. I strongly believe that all concessions should have at least a partial view of the field. As it were, Dontrelle hit a grand slam while I was getting food. I basically missed the entire game since the Marlins won 7-3. Bitch!
Grade: D

Food.
Every stadium needs a signature food item. A good signature food can overcome soggy hot dog buns, overpriced soda, and dry pretzels without mustard. That signature item at Shea is the italian sausage. An all-beef sausage, topped with grilled peppers and onions, on a warm italian roll. Sounds great? Wrong!

It was disgusting. The price from my last visit went up from $4.75 to $6.50 this time; the sausage itself was bland and lukewarm; the onions and peppers added no real flavor; the roll was beyond stale; and the line to get it was long and cost me seeing the Dontrelle grand slam. Just a terrible item all around. Suggestions: keep the sausage and onions and peppers together on the grill until the purchase is made, toast the roll, and offer some packages of hot sauce or salsa.

After consuming the sausage, I didn't feel like forking over money to buy anything else. On previous visits, the hot dogs were average, the chicken fingers nothing to write home about, the beer selection from tap limited to Bud and Bud Light, but the helmet bucket of curly fries were greasy and salty, just the way curly fries ought to be.
Grade: F

Fans.
The Mets have been drawing well ever since Pedro came onboard last year, and this year, as the favorites to win the NL pennant at the halfway mark, the Mets have actually been outdrawing the Yankees. The fans are truly excited this year and the stadium was full of energy throughout most of the game. Even though the home team lost, everyone was cheerful and seemed to enjoy a good time. Generally, Met fans are pretty knowledgeable of their team, a little fair-weathered, capable of cheering on their own without urging from the public address announcer. Two things stood out. First, they were vociferous without being profane when Lima couldn't last past the fourth inning. This is a big plus. There's nothing worse than some drunk cursing and refusing to shut up with a bunch of kids nearby. Second, most refused to use the Thunderstix. Another big plus.
Grade: A-

Overall Experience.
The team, the fans, and the food in Flushing were all good. But not good enough to overcome Shea itself. Just about every Met fan must agree that the time for a new stadium has come. I'll be awaiting eagerly.
Grade: C-

Next stop: Fenway Park, Boston.

Back from Hiatus

2006-07-14T17:07:00.000-04:00

Ever since Pedro's return to Boston, I've managed to watch one baseball game in its near entirety in three weeks. Just my luck that I happened upon the brutal 19 inning Sox affair the Sunday before the All-Star Game. I quit watching in the 13th inning after the Red Sox had already blown two leads, went to shower, then came back to find the teams were still playing. By the time Rudy 93 Octane Seanez was throwing his second (or was it third or fourth) inning, I had already fallen asleep twice. The All-Star Break was much needed. Interleague was getting boring and I'm already marking my calender for the next Yankee-Sox series.

Three things caught my eye during my three week exile from baseball:

1. Emergence of Francisco Liriano as the best pitcher in baseball. Yes, he's better than Johan Santana. If the season ended today, there's no question he's the AL ROY over Papelbon and Verlander. Surprisingly, Johjima doesn't even enter the conversation. It'd be a toss up between him and Johan for AL Cy Young. AL MVP? Strangely enough, it's either Papelbon or Papi right now. But back to Liriano. Hard to imagine he was the throw-in in the AJ to the Giants deal. That trade might be worse than the Heathcliff Slocumb for Tek and Lowe deal that set the Mariners 5 years back. Only injuries can hold back Liriano.

2. Speaking of bad trades, the Reds made one of the worst trades I can remember yesterday. The headline wrote that they had sent Kearns, Lopez and Wagner for Majewski, Bray, Watson, and Clayton. I was sure that the Lopez in question was someone like Aquilino or Luis, basically career Quad-A players who had just ben roster filler on the Reds. Nope, it was Felipe. Felipe Lopez? Are you kidding me? This guy was about to be traded for Jose Reyes in our keeper league as recently as May. This is easily one of the top three worst trades I can remember off the top of my head. I'd have to say this was worse than Foulke and cash for Koch. In fact much worse. Keith Law does a good job of ripping Krivsky a new pooper, while the underrated Jonah Keri stirs up fond memories of incompetent GM's. And not just in 20/20 hindsight, this is one of those bad trades that just get worse over time.

Maybe Kearns and Lopez simply weren't in the plans of the Reds for this season and beyond, but that's besides the point. Kearns and Lopez were two relatively young, above average, everyday position players and, as such, valuable commodities. The first point is you don't trade valuable commodities for nearly worthless ones because of a thing called opportunity cost. You don't think the Red Sox would have been willing to give up Delcarmen or Hansen for a guy like Lopez this coming offseason? And throw in the fact that Trot Nixon is a free agent, the Sox would have been in the market for a RF as well. The second point is one that a shocking majority of GMs have failed to figure out: If the goal is the World Series (playoff appearances and division titles, while gravy, is more or less meaningless and forgotten three years from now) and you're not building to win today, you must necessarily be building to win tomorrow. In a year when the Reds will only be striving to win an pathetically weak NL Wildcard by finishing 5 games above .500 and the team has no realistic possibilities of winning the World Series, let alone the NL pennant, Krivsky has failed to do either. He probably set the franchise back two or three years.

Tangent #1: Jim Bowden has just won the executive of the year. In a span of 9 months, assuming conservatively, Soriano fetches a top prospect and an average major leaguer at the deadline, he will have turned Majewski and Wilkerson into an above average one-third of his starting lineup. They should be poised to contend just as the Mets get older and trail off as Glavine, Pedro, and Delgado ride off into the sunset.

Tangent #2: Speaking of bad GMs, how did Bob Melvin get a contract extension from the D'Backs? What has he done since he's been there? Is that team any better than it was two years ago? Granted, they have a ton of prospects, but they're still awful in an awful division. Absurd.

3. Baseball betting is unprofitable. Not extremely unprofitable, but the 5% juice on every wager is mighty tough to beat in the long run. I'll have a manifesto of my results shortly, as soon as I'm smart enough to conclude this awry experiment by withdrawing all my money from Bodog.

Welcome Home, Pedro

2006-06-28T09:23:00.000-04:00

I don't think I have ever NOT rooted for the Red Sox. I never imagined anything but. Well, there's a first time for everything, right? Might as well be tonight. But I never thought I'd see the day Pedro pitched in Fenway from the visitor's dugout.

There's too much to say in too little time. I'll need to reorganize some bolts in my head. In the meantime, a piece from the early days.

And to the HOFer Peter Gammons: Get Well Soon!

Me Llamo Pedro. 5/28/02

Pedro Martinez. Simply put, the greatest pitcher of my generation. Perhaps the greatest pitcher of any generation. The greatest pitcher I have ever seen pitch. Maybe the greatest pitcher anyone has ever seen pitch. There’s no one else like him.

Pedro is pure dominance. No one else in the league has the nasty stuff he has with that kind of command. He is the epitome of the perfect pitcher. Randy Johnson’s fastball, Trevor Hoffman’s changeup, Kerry Wood’s curveball, Greg Maddux’s control, Curt Schilling’s guts. Throw them all together, and out comes Pedro. When he is on, he is a no-hitter waiting to happen every night out. There is just no one better. In May 2002, against the Seattle Mariners, one of the best teams in the league, he struck on the side in the first inning on nine pitches. Mark McLemore was the only one to make contact, hitting a foul ball. After the game he said, “His ball hit my bat.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

His mid-90’s four-seam fastball paints corners, in perfect locations. Outside corner, inside corner, high and tight, low and away. Every one of these fastballs seems perfect. Jason Varitek never moves his glove. If he misses, it’s as if he meant to miss, just biding his time, setting you up for the next pitch, the back-breaking, knee-bending curveball. Not your conventional overhand curve, Pedro, with his three-quarters motion, slings it up there, with an eleven-to-seven break. Let’s just call it the “Seven-Eleven” special. He never hangs it. Right handed hitters are frozen and cant swing at it. It’s not one of those pitches that you swing and miss at. That’s typically the sign of a dominating pitch, one that hitters swing at and cant hit. Not this curveball. It’s so good that hitters cant even move the bat off their shoulders. That is, if they’re still standing in the batter’s box. If he really wants to make you look foolish, there is the best changeup of all time. The typical successful changeup is predicated on the fastball and changing the speed of the pitch. Because a right-handed hitter generally picks up the release of the ball from the left-handed pitcher faster than they would a right-handed pitcher, and vice-versa, the changeup is typically used by righties against lefties and by lefties against righties. A righty with a good fastball throwing a changeup to another righty simply allows the batter to speed up his swing. Not Pedro’s changeup. He throws it to righties and lefties. When he leaves it in the strike zone, it’s usually at the knees on the outside corner. When he throws it out of the strike zone, it has great screwball action. It’s low and away to lefties and down and in to righties. If you’re lucky, he didn’t throw it with two strikes and you simply swing and miss, live to fight another day. Or should you make contact with it, it’s either a weak grounder pulled to the proper side of the field, or a short fly to an outfielder. Unfortunately for you, he almost never throws it unless there are two strikes. At least you get to admire him from the best seats in the house: the dugout.

I’m not sure where this notion that he’s a fragile player comes from. Yeah, he misses a few starts per year. But 2001 was the first time in his career that he’s been on the disabled list for an extended period of time. From 1996 to 2000, Pedro averaged 224.3 innings and 31 starts. Assuming the typical starter in a healthy year makes 34 starts, a reasonable assumption given that there are rainouts, doubleheaders, and scratched starts for minor reasons, Pedro, relatively to a starter who is good and healthy enough to stay in a rotation for an entire year, misses 3 starts. That’s two weeks missed. Given the length of a season, that’s next to nothing and barely a blip on the radar screen. For Pedro, I’ll give him rest for those three starts and a couple more just so I can watch the possibility of perfection in those other 30.

Unlike Tom Glavine, Pedro doesn’t need the umpire’s help in expanding the strike zone. Unlike Randy Johnson, Pedro doesn’t need to overpower hitters. Unlike Greg Maddux, Pedro doesn’t need the pinpoint control. And unlike Roger Clemens, Red Sox nation feels secure in resting the hopes of a World Series title on his shoulders.

The Man shows up for big games. Maybe not games that will go down as important in history, but games that matter, at least to the die-hards. In the ‘99 season, he faced Clemens in a virtually meaningless Sunday night game in the middle of May at Yankee Stadium. The game was scoreless until the 9th inning when Trot Nixon hit a two-run homer off the admittedly great Clemens. Pedro showed up in the ninth, and though there were a couple of tense moments, got out of it. The Red Sox won 2-0. Again, the one game in May was meaningless. But it was magical, establishing Pedro as an all time favorite. We couldn’t bear to see the Red Sox lose to Clemens! He had put in so much heart and effort into that game that he might have tired out his arm. It’s for moments like that Pedro will always be better than Clemens. Clemens never would have won that game. Pedro did, and showed that he was better than Clemens in doing it.

1999 All-Star game. Completely meaningless, except it was held in Fenway Park where Ted Williams was joined in centerfield by all the All-Stars of that year in an awesome moment. Pedro was the starter. He proceeded to strike out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, and Sammy Sosa to start the game. He struck out Mark McGwire to start the second. Matt Williams reached on an error and was thrown out trying to steal on a 3-2 curve that struck out Jeff Bagwell. If Williams wasn’t caught stealing, Pedro would have struck out Piazza. Everyone at Fenway knew it. Pedro knew it. Piazza knew it. Pedro subsequently landed on the disabled list after that start. It was expected, given the way that he came out giving everything he had to the Sox fans who haven’t had a whole lot to cheer for in the century. And what a way to close it out.

That ’99 season wasn’t over, not in the least. You want a game that means something? Game 5, American League Division Series vs. the Indians. In Game 1, Pedro got hurt after throwing four shutout innings. The Red Sox were up 2-0 when he left; they wind up losing 3-2. Pedro was deemed out of the series. Game 5, the entire bullpen was shot. For both teams. Derek Lowe had given all he had, and although his ERA may not show it, pitched great. It’s 8-8 after three innings. Cleveland has scored three, two, and three in the first three innings. Jimy Williams, a manager that never got the credit he deserved because his players didn’t respect him, realizes that if there was ever a time that the Sox needed to shut someone down, this was it. In comes Pedro. The rest, as they say, was history. Pitching with a fastball that topped out at 88 mph due to his shoulder strain, pitches six no-hit innings to close out the Indians. Sox win 12-8. When he came into the game and got through the fourth inning, the Indians knew they were done. They knew that Pedro wouldn’t let us down.

The postscript wasn’t as sweet as that Game 5 win over the Indians, as the Red Sox lost the ALCS to the Yankees in 5 games. But for one night, all of Boston and the Sox fans around the country must have felt on top of the world. After losing the first two games of the series in Yankee Stadium, mostly thanks to a very questionable call at second base where Knoblauch clearly dropped the ball yet somehow got a force and awful defense, the Sox came back to Fenway down 0-2 with Pedro on the mound against Clemens. Pedro goes on to throw a two-hitter over seven, striking out 12. Clemens, on the other hand, didn’t offer much in resistance, leaving after two innings down 4-0. Official reports say it was a tight groin. I say he was a punch drunk boxer who had had enough and threw in the towel. Way to show up, Roger.

Although the Red Sox lost the series, for one night, Pedro again gave us all he had.

We can go on and on about his stats and I can make every argument in the book about how he’s arguably the most dominant pitcher of any era. I think I will one day. But for now, that’s not what makes Pedro great as I hope this is not the last I write of Pedro. Sometimes history is too much for any one man to overcome, even a great one. But with Nomar, Manny, Trot, Varitek, Lowe, and now add Shea and Damon to the mix, maybe, just maybe Pedro has enough to get him there to show the world that he’s the best of all time. If we cant win with him, I cant imagine how we’ll ever win without him. But if any man can lead us to the Promised Land, it’s gotta be him. Nomar may well be the heart and soul of the Sox, but He will be the one to seal the deal.

His name is Pedro.

All Star Rules

2006-06-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

I'm too lazy to go into full details of who should be on the pitch staffs for the the ASG. But I do feel strongly about these rules. To review:

32 players per team. 19 position players, 2 per non-pitching position, plus 3 at discretion.
13 pitchers, 6 starters, 3 closers, 2 middle men, plus 1 at discretion.
Numbers are most important.
Numbers are not end-all-be-all. Subjective factors shall include, in descending importance, comparing Cabrera and Rolen, two third basemen with very similar numbers:

team performance (Cards are in first place; Marlins at or near last, albeit a difficult division. Edge: Rolen. Note that run of the mill teams hovering near .500 should not be included)
player value to team (Cabrera is easily the best hitter on the Marlins without a close second; Rolen is a good hitter, but not feared. Edge: Cabrera)
defense (Cabrera is atrocious on defense; Rolen has half a dozen Gold Gloves. Edge: Rolen)
player marketability (Cabrera is younger and more flashy. Rolen is well-known but an understated star. Edge: Even)
track record (Cabrera's numbers so far puts him on the path to the HOF; Rolen is a perennial All-Star who, with a few more good years, should be in the HOF as well. Edge: Even)
special circumstance (Inapplicable this year, but Jason Bay must play in PNC this year)

Position players rules:

league leader in BA gets in regardless
league leader in HRs gets in regardless
league leader in RBIs gets in regardless
league leader in Runs gets in regardless
league leader in OPS gets in regardless
must hit above .250

Starting pitchers rules:

league leader in ERA gets in regardless
league leader in WHIP gets in regardless
league leader in Wins gets in regardless
team winning % in starts must be at least .500
must have enough innings to qualify for ERA title
cannot have an ERA above 4.00
cannot have a WHIP above 1.35

Closers rules:

league leader in Saves gets in regardless
save % must be greater than 80%
cannot have an ERA above 3.75
cannot have a combined losses + blown saves > 5 (a blown save and a loss in the same game counts as 1
must be on pace to have 30 saves
team must be within 5 games of 1st place or within 3 games of the wild card race; otherwise, the saves are meaningless

The three most important criteria for middle relievers are holds, blown saves, and relevance in a pennant race. They also cannot have an ERA over 3.00. This should weed out a lot of fillers.

My picks:

AL Starters: Halladay, Contreras, Mussina, Johan, Schilling, Kazmir.

AL Closers: Papelbon, Ryan, Rivera. Papelbon and Ryan have sub-1.00 ERAs. Rivera is, well, Rivera.

AL Relievers: Zumaya, Shields. There are no other contenders.

AL Last Pitcher: Rogers. Best starter on the best team in the league. Liriano is a close second.

NL Starters: Pedro, Schmidt, Glavine, Carpenter, Webb, Arroyo.

NL Closers: Gordon (the team record is barely good enough), Izzy, Hoffman.

NL Relievers: Saito, Sanchez. Saito's been the MVP for the Dodgers. Sanchez inspires more confidence in Met fans than Wagner.

NL Last Pitcher: Zambrano. Leading the league in K's, but the Cubs record may keep him out. Otherwise, Penny or Capuano.

Mr. Rogers Gone Insane

2006-06-15T09:57:00.000-04:00

Every year during the All-Star voting, the writers criticize the fans and the managers for making the wrong picks. Most of the time, the writers are right. Phil Rogers made his picks yesterday, proving scientifically he is a dumbass. I like Mr. Rogers and the work he does for ESPN.com and the Chicago Tribune. But my God Phil, you really didn't bother doing any research, did you?

First, some ground rules:
32 players per team. 19 position players, 2 per non-pitching position, plus three at discretion.
13 pitchers, 5 starters, 4 closers, 2 middle men, plus one at discretion.
Numbers are most important.
Numbers are not end-all-be-all. Subjective factors shall include, in descending importance:
1. team performance
2. player value to team
3. defense
4. player marketability (Jeter should be an All-Star every year)
5. track record
6. and special circumstance (Bay must play in PNC Park this year)

For position players:
1. league leader in BA gets in regardless
2. league leader in HRs gets in regardless
3. league leader in runs gets in regardless
4. league leader in RBIs gets in regardless
5. league leader in OPS gets in regardless
6. must hit at least .250

AL Catchers.
Rogers: Mauer, Hernandez, Pudge, Posada
Mauer's in as the leader in BA. There's a guy named Victor Martinez who has eclipses Pudge in runs, HRs, RBI, OBP, and SLG. Pudge is on a division leader, but not enough. Martinez gets in over Hernandez because of marketability and past performance.
Starter: Mauer
Reserve: Martinez
Candidates: Hernandez, Posada

NL Catchers.
Rogers: Estrada, LoDuca, Barrett
This is an incredibly weak class. Estrada has the best numbers. LoDuca plays on a winner, but Barrett hits cleanup for the Cubs and the Mets would still be in first without LoDuca.
Starter: Estrada
Reserve: Barrett
Candidates: None

AL First Basemen.
Rogers: Konerko, Jiambi, Overbay, Broussard
Jiambi is the league leader in OPS and Konerko is on pace for 40/110. Give the tiebreaker to the defending champs. Overbay is a good player, but he's the 5th best hitter on his on team. Broussard? Are you kidding? He platoons! Youkilis finishes a distant third. Mourneau is getting hot in June.
Starter: Konerko
Reserve: Jiambi
Candidates: Youkilis, Morneau

NL First Basemen.
Rogers: Pujols, Howard, Berkman, Nomar
No arguments here. The only question is who's caddying for Pujols. Howard definitely has more mass appeal. We'll find deserving Lance a spot later. Nomar probably needs to be added later if he winds up with enough ABs to lead the league in hitting. Delgado only gets on the list if he can keep his average about .250.
Starter: Pujols
Reserve: Howard
Candidates: Berkman, Nomar

AL Second Basemen.Rogers: Lopez, Iguchi, Cano
Another terrible group. Lopez gets the nod since he's among league leaders in RBIs. Iguchi and Cano are toss ups. Let's go with Cano. He plays in New York and he's more important offensively to his team, whereas Iguchi's backup (Ozuna) is actually batting .400. Throw in Grudzgfagnakn because we might need a Royal. Starter: Lopez
Reserve: Cano
Candidates: Iguchi, Grudzzbcnalkjnga

NL Second Basemen.
Rogers: Utley, Philips, Uggla
Philips is the NL's version of Shelton and has done nothing since April. Where is Weeks? He cant play a lick of defense but he has a .390+ OBP from the leadoff spot, is in the top five in runs scored, and has 14 steals. Uggla is having a very good year, but he's a total unknown. All-Star and Uggla don't really belong in the same sentence right now.
Starter: Utley
Reserve: Weeks
Candidates: Uggla

AL Third Basemen.
Rogers: ARod, Crede, Chavez, Lowell, WiggintonWhat are you smoking Phil? Crede is reverting to his old self. Chavez is solid as usual. Lowell has had a mini-renaissance (About to crash any minute now. Trust me. Just watch him play). Wigginton? Are you kidding me? And he missed the guy who's leading the position in runs, homers, and RBIs! Troy Glaus! How can you suggest Overbay and omit Glaus? As #1 would say, that's ludacrisp.
Starter: Glaus
Reserve: ARod
Candidates: Chavez

NL Third Basemen.
Rogers: Wright, Cabrera, Rolen, Ensberg, Bill Hall, Sanchez
All these guys are having a great years, but they cant all make the team. Sanchez goes first. His numbers aren't there and he fails subjective factors 1-5. Hall goes next. Dear Phil, he's played more games at SS than 3B. Don't be silly. Of the remaining four, Cabrera is most important to his team, Rolen has the best track record, and Wright is the most marketable and plays on the best team in the NL. There goes Ensberg. We'll try to find room for Rolen and Ensberg in the remaining slots if their numbers match up.
Starter: Wright
Reserve: Cabrera
Candidates: Rolen, Ensberg

AL Shortstops.
Rogers: Tejada, Jeter, Young, Guillen
Pretty obvious choices, although Young is having only a decent year. Move Guillen ahead of him. Cabrera belongs in the conversation as well.
Starter: Tejada
Reserve: Jeter
Candidates: Guillen, Cabrera

NL Shortstops.
Rogers: Renteria, Greene, Reyes, Hanley
Renteria has an OPS near .900, blowing away the competition. Khalil Greene is a joke. Mr. Rogers did not bother checking that he's batting below .220. And where is Felipe Lopez?
Starter: Renteria
Reserve: Lopez
Candidates: Hanley, Reyes

AL Corner Outfielders.
Rogers: Dye, Mags, Rios, Swisher, Vlad, Ibanez
He actually leaves out the two guys that should be automatic, although he does mention Manny. In case you haven't noticed, Ichiro is doing as well as he did two years ago. Rios has been incredible, Swisher has been solid, but they're going to have to get squeezed. Ibanez? Ibanez? I mean, who the hell is Raul Ibanez?
Starters: Manny, Ichiro
Reserves: Dye, Rios, Vlad, Magglio
Candidates: Swisher

NL Corner Outfielders.
Rogers: Bay, Soriano, Lee, Abreu, Holliday, Burrell
Bay needs to start in Pittsburgh. He's the entire offesne for the Buccos. Soriano has a chance at 40/40. Lee is in a free agency year frenzy. Abreu and Burrell have really been nothing special and they're both lousy defensive players, but no other outfielders are putting up great numbers. Holliday's numbers should be taken at close to face value as the Coors effect has worn off in the last year and a half.
Starters: Bay, Soriano
Reserves: Lee, Holliday, Abreu, Burrell
Candidates: Drew

AL Centerfielders.
Rogers: WellsVernon was the only centerfielder Rogers lists among outfielders. Not sure how you the number of Mrs. Sizemore shirts you see at Jacobs Field. After all, women are always right.
Starter: Wells
Reserve: Sizemore
Candidates: Damon

NL Centerfielders.
Rogers: Andruw, Beltran
No arguments, though I would switch the order.
Starter: BeltranReserve: Andruw
Candidates: Brady Clark. Ok, that was just to make sure you were awake.

AL Final Three: Thome, Pronk, Papi. This is obvious. There are no other candidates.

NL Final Three: Berkman, Nomar, Rolen. The other candidates were Reyes, Hanley, Ensberg. Berkman gets in over Ensberg because of his importance on the Astros. The Dodgers are leading the NL West and deserve at least one position player. The Mets don't need Reyes, they've already got two starters. Hanley and Rolen are close, but Rolen gets the call since the Cards are in first.

Pitchers tomorrow.

Beasts in the East

2006-06-13T07:42:00.000-04:00

Watching Jose Contreras throw a gem last night, I was reminded of what a different pitcher he had become since he was fresh off the boat with the Yankees. In the games against the Red Sox, he never, not once, looked comfortable. He always looked completely clueless. Now, he's an entirely different pitcher. He's capable of throwing all his pitches for strikes, at any count. With all his arm angles, it seemed like he had 8 or 9 different pitches working last night. I would even rate his nearly spinless forkball as the best pitch in the AL. Or at least as good a pitch as anyone else throws. (Tangential Rant: The others? Halladay's two-seamers that move all over, Mo's cutter, Johan's changeup, Kazmir's slider, and BJ Ryan's fastball, which while not overpowering, combined with his funky motion, makes it incredibly hard for the hitters to see. There should be quite a few additions to this list in the very near future. There's a whole crop of young pitchers coming up in the AL that have absolutely killer stuff. Zumaya's fastball consistently at 100+, Felix's curve that bends knees more than Prior's, Papelbon's fastball that nips corners, Liriano's slider that falls off the plate. But it's just too early to say.)

Maybe Contreras really just needed the time to get comfortable in the States. Maybe pitching coach Don Cooper helped him figure something out. Maybe it was the spotlight of New York that got to him. Whatever it was, he went from a Cuban bust to the ace on the league's best team. He has a World Series ring and, at this rate, he should probably be preparing some space on the mantle for the Cy Young trophy as well. His numbers for the year: 7-0, 2.62ERA, 1.01WHIP.

Then again, maybe none of us should be so surprised. Well, except Georgie Porgie. The truth is, starting pitchers who go into the AL East usually get hammered and those who leave the AL East usually see a revival. The simplest reason? The lineups are loaded. And it's not even close. Outside of the Rays, every club in the last ten years in the AL East have been good or great offensive teams. The list of names is almost silly. The depth of each lineup is even more silly.

Yankees: Jeter, Bernie, Posada, Tino, Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Soriano, A-Rod. I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of others too. All you need to know is that Scott Brosius once drove in 90 runs from the nine spot.
Red Sox: Mo, Nomar, Nixon, Damon, Manny, Ramirez, Varitek, Valentin, Youkilis. Mo was a MVP, Nomar was a batting champion. Manny and Papi average 40/130.
Blue Jays: Delgado, Wells, Green, Olerud, Stewart, Cruz Jr., Mondesi, Hillenbrand, Fullmer. This year, they've added Glaus, Overbay, Rios, Molina. Even Tony Batista managed to hit 41HRs one year. And did you know they once had these infielders at the same time: Chris Woodward, Felipe Lopez, Orlando Hudson, Cesar Izturis, Ryan Freel. Gord Ash decided to play Homer Bush and Alex Gonzalez and trade the rest. Nice move.
Orioles: Ripken, Palmeiro, Anderson, Alomar, Surhoff, Belle, Conine, Mora, Tejada, Gibbons, Lopez, Roberts. While most of these guys weren't offensive forces capable of winning MVPs, they were/are all professional hitters, mostly in their primes.

What does this mean for the pitchers? Higher pitch counts, higher walk rates, higher homerun rates, higher ERAs, and a whole lot of pain. The list of pitchers with good track records who struggle upon moving to the AL East is long and distinguished. Since 1996: Rogers. Wells. Neagle. Weaver. Brown. Vazquez. Pavano. Johnson. And that's just the Yankees! To be fair, here are some others: Fassero. Nomo. Burkett. Kim. Miller. Clement. Beckett. Hamilton. Lidle. Batista. (The Devil Rays were left off the list becaues they've pretty much been irrelevant for their entire existence. On the other hand, the Orioles have not made a significant acquisition for a starting pitcher in the last ten years. Pretty clear why they stink, no?) Granted, this is as unscientific as it gets. I'm only comparing ERA and WHIP for these pitchers before and after they arrivd in the AL East. Good track record is entirely subjective, injuries and age were only taken into account by cursory glance, and some pitchers have pretty insignificant sample sizes.

Nevertheless, let's look at some big names who have had much better success since leaving the AL East, focusing primarily on the last year in the AL East and the two immediate years upon leaving, ERA and WHIP only.

Kenny Rogers: (1997) 5.65, 1.54; (1998) 3.17, 1.19; (1999) 4.19, 1.41
Aaron Sele: (1997) 5.37, 1.56; (1998) 4.23, 1.52; (1999) 4.79, 1.53
Chris Carpenter: (2002) 5.28, 1.58; (2004) 3.46, 1.14; (2005) 2.83, 1.06
Cory Lidle: (2003) 5.75, 1.43; (2004) 4.90, 1.35; (2005) 4.53, 1.35
Roger Clemens: (2003) 3.91, 1.21; (2004) 2.98, 1.16; (2005) 1.87, 1.01
Andy Pettitte: (2003) 4.02, 1.33; (2004) 3.90, 1.23; (2005) 2.39, 1.03
Jeff Weaver: (2003) 5.99, 1.62; (2004) 4.01, 1.30; (2005) 4.22, 1.17
Kelvim Escobar: (2003) 4.29, 1.48; (2004) 3.93, 1.29; (2005) 3.02, 1.11
Derek Lowe: (2004) 5.41, 1.61; (2005) 3.61, 1.25; (2006) 2.83, 1.18
Pedro Martinez: (2004) 3.90, 1.17; (2005) 2.82, 0.95; (2006) 2.94, 0.90
Javy Vazquez: (2004) 4.91, 1.29; (2005) 4.42, 1.25; (2006) 4.19, 1.19
Jose Contreras: (2004) 5.64, 1.41; (2005) 3.61, 1.23; (2006) 2.62, 1.01

If Contreras makes the All-Star team this year, only Weaver, Escobar and Lidle among this list have not.

This effect of the AL East on a pitcher has actually been more pronounced in the last five years, coinciding with the 2002 Henry/Werner/Lucchino/Epstein takeover of the Red Sox. Since 2002, the Red Sox have led the AL in runs every year, while the Yankees have ranked 2nd four times (3rd the other time).

All of this means that what Pedro, Mousse, Halladay, and to a lesser extent, Clemens, have accomplished while pitching in this division is nothing short of amazing (Especially Halladay, since he has to face both the Yankees and Red Sox). You know what Clemens has done, no need to wax poetic about him. Pedro won two Cy Youngs and 4 ERA titles in a span of 5 years between 1999 and 2003. If he hadn't torn his rotator cuff in 2001, you can bet it'd be 3 Cy Youngs and 5 ERA titles. Mussina has won 161 games since 1996, with 5 seasons of an ERA under 3.50 and 5 top-six finishes in the Cy Young voting. He has 232 career wins pitching exclusively in the AL East. Halladay, since reviving his career from Single-A in 2001, is 73-30, for a winning percentage of 70.9%, a mark that's better than Pedro's all-time leading 70.2%. Oh, and he has a Cy Young too. Yikes.

All of this also means I'm not too optimistic about Beckett's career in Boston. Ace? I don't think so. Josh, hope you get there, but you got a tall mountain to climb. Maybe we can trade you for Halladay...

Sunday Soliloquy

2006-06-11T23:39:00.000-04:00

Needing a break from my current Paul Auster addiction and full from my lamb rice plate, I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon on the balcony with my best friend, MLB.tv. Starting at Fenway and ending in the 5th inning at Chase Field, let's hit the games.

Mets 15, Diamondbacks 2 (4 game sweep)
Russ Ortiz is a terrible pitcher. I never liked watching him even during his winning years as a Giant. All he does is nibble. He's probably replaced Steve Trachsel atop my list of most unwatchable pitchers. Comparing the similar contracts that he and AJ Burnett have signed, it's not even an argument that Burnett has been more helpful to his team despite not having pitched. When you don't pitch, you cant lose. Ortiz lost this game in the first inning.

Walk.
Steal.
Bunt Single.
E4, 1-0.
F9.
K, Steal.
Double, 3-0.
Pedro gets warm.
Game over.

Joe Garagiola: "The last you want to do is give Pedro a 3 run lead. It's like waking up on Christmas and finding no presents under the tree." I have no idea what he's saying. But Pedro does win his first since April, despite being unable to consistently throw a curve for a strike.

Mariners 6, Angels 2 (3 game sweep)
I managed to get the M's getting +102 against Weaver this morning. Peon Felix has now acquired the rank of squire. He managed to throw a complete game 4-hitter on 94 pitches, facing a total of 30 batters. He was at 67 thru 7 and 84 thru 8. He threw a total of 21 balls, averaging 2.3 per inning. Hitters 3-7 went hitless in 22 AB's. Pretty remarkable for a 20 year-old. In his last start, he beat Francisco Liriano. Speaking of whom...

Twins 4, Orioles 0
Liriano has allowed 9 hits in his last 20 innings, spanning 3 starts, with two 1-hitters. He's now 5-1 with a 2.10 ERA for the year, with 56K in 51.1IP. The scouts were right: he does have better stuff than Johan, better than Kazmir. If he avoids injury and figures out how to pitch like Johan did, my over/under with #1 look much brighter.

A's 6, Yankees 5 (3 game sweep)
Zito walked a bunch of guys, but settled down after the 1st. Farnsworth loses again. Shocking. Another underdog pick at +123 pans out.

Dodgers 6, Rockies 5
The Dodgers rally for two in the 9th as Fuentes blows his second save of the year. Overall, the Rox pen has been rock solid. Their ERAs and WHIPs, respectively, entering play tonight:

Brian Fuentes 1.46, 1.01
Ramon Ramirez 2.28, 0.80
Ray King 2.76, 1.47
Jose Mesa 2.86, 1.27

Luckily for Mesa, using Vizquel as target practice does not hurt his WHIP.

Houston 14, Braves 4
Horacio Ramirez took a liner off his forehead. Let's hope he's alright. Bobby Cox hung Reitsma out to dry in the 6th. I don't see how he'll have a significant role in the pen for the Braves the rest of the year.

Rays 8, Royals 2
If Rocco Baldelli makes his return in Kansas City and no one sees it, does it make a sound?

Red Sox 5, Rangers 4
Rangers 13, Red Sox 6

What does it say about the club's confidence in Matt Clement, another unwatchable pitcher, that they skip his regular turn in the rotation for a rookie called up from Double-A? At least Pauley's ERA was lower coming into the game. Big Papi saved the Red Sox from a sweep of a doubleheader, hitting a 3-run bomb with two outs in the 9th. But some of the credit must go to whoever's calling the pitches for Rangers, whether it's the pitching coach, Buck, Barajas or Otsuka. Completely asinine.

Otsuka managed to get ahead in the count 0-2 by throwing his good slider in to Papi. He barely missed with the next two sliders, basically in the same location. On 2-2, he threw another good slider inside at the shins of which Papi barely managed to get apiece. What doe they decide to throw on the nex pitch? A fastball towards the outer half belt high that gets smoked to right. For the love of God, why???

There are two pitches that you can't throw to Papi. First, he crushes any pitch that's thigh high, inner half. Second, and this is especially true at Fenway, he crushes any mediocre fastball on the outer half as he's willing to drive it the other way over or off the wall. See, e.g., Jarrod Washburn, Game 3, 2004 ALDS.

During the AB, I kept saying to myself, "Damn, that slider is a good pitch, I don't think Papi can hit it." If I can see it, why can't they? Otsuka had done a good job of keeping that ball down enough and in enough that if Papi managed to keep the ball fair, it'd be a weak ground ball to the right side. Otsuka hadn't hung one yet. Furthermore, it's his best pitch. His fastball tops out at around 90. You can't get Papi out on that pitch; it's a meatball to him. Your best case scenario with that pitch against him is a flyball to the warning track in left center. Your most likely scenario is a deep flyball that hits the wall. Your worst case scenario? It's this!

Championship*

2006-06-09T22:52:00.000-04:00

Actually, let's try this:

New York Yankees, 1996 World Series Champions*

Oh shoot, I forgot about this one:

New York Yankees, 1999 World Series Champions*

After Tuesday's utterly stupefying and shocking bombshell of a revelation that Grimsley quit using steroids to focus on HGH, Jim... Wait a minute... I distinctly recall Grimsley being on the... Excuse me for a brief moment...

New York Yankees, 2000 World Series Champions*

Ok, where was I? Oh right. After the story of Grimsley being busted by Feds for receiving HGH broke on Tuesday, Friday morning brings more utterly stupefying and shocking revelation of a bomshell that Jim Leyritz has used pretty much every drug ever found in a major league clubhouse (not including the 1980's Mets clubhouse, which was restricted only to coke, crack cocaine, and minute traces of heroin).

I'm absolutely stunned by this news. I mean, come on, what are they going to tell us next, that the world is round and that Columbus didn't really discover America?

I actually had another post ready to go on Tuesday night, but a computer crash lost the file. I didn't feel like writing about it again and the post was crappy anyway. On second thought, anytime we can publicly (proceeding on the unfounded assumption this blog is "public") humiliate and roast a beloved Yankee is good times for me. You would think. I thought so. In reality, I take no humor in this and Jiambi and Sheffield being implicated by BALCO anymore. It was funny last year. Now it's just boring old news. Instead of covering the Tigers, Pujols, Papelbon, Pedro, A-Rod's unclutchness, the young Marlins, Soriano, and all the million other great stories that they should be covering, the media is basically going to whore this story out until kingdom come. And kingdom will come when Donald Fehr and Bud Selig come to a new agreement that will test for HGH, the new drug of choice. And I'm sure our wonderful lawmakers will push them there by having a travashamockery of a few Congressional hearings on this matter instead of things that ACTUALLY matter.

(Tangential Political Rant: Why is it baseball gets this crap from Congress while the other sports get nothing? Uncle Cliffy got a puny five-game suspension for violation of NBA's substance abuse policy, yet I don't see Henry Waxman of California marching David Stern's ass to the podium to defend NBA's drug policy. Dear Mr. Waxman, California has a lot more problems that you should be worrying about. And 325 pound linemen in the NFL are running 4.8 40's. Um, okay. If you think that sport is clean, I've got some Enron futures that you might be interested in. Why does baseball get all the heat and the attention from Senators and Congressmen? Tennis, anyone?)

Buster Olney (repeatedly) and Jayson Stark have already written on this. Gammons, the one and only HOFER, decided to write about the amateur draft, god bless him. Tom Verducci has been all over Bonds like a fat kid on cake. I'm sure Rosenthal is bound to weigh in soon enough. As much as I love reading these guys on a daily basis, I'm going to stop for awhile. I just don't care. I'm sick of it. I don't want to hear about steroids or HGH or greenies. I've made up my opinions about the era and close to nothing is going to change my mind. I'm sure most of you feel the same way. Just go away.

And to the Yankee fans out there, I'm kidding about the asterisks. They're stupid. As stupid as 73*.

****

In other news, Mark Wohlers is pissed as hell.

****

Papelbon blew his first game of the year for the Sox, but picked up the victory. He didn't pitch badly at all. He came into the 8th inning with two outs and men on 1st and 3rd. Most people are right in saying a closer is tested only after he experiences failure. They are curious as to how he will respond after this blown save. I'm not. He needs to get shelled and the team to lose in a big spot. They won the game tonight. I doubt his confidence wavers after this. I'll be curious if/when he blows a 3 run lead at Yankee Stadium in October.

****

I'm pretty sure Ned Yost is tearing his eyeballs out right now. The Brew-ha-ha's took a 6-0 lead after two innings tonight, and proceeded to lose the game 10-6. How, you ask? It's one thing to lose when the wind is blowing out and guys are teeing off like it's homerun derby. It's another thing to do it because you cant throw a strike. The Cardinals managed to score 8 runs in the 3rd and 4th innings, most as a result of walks:

S. Rolen, walk, scored on double.
H. Luna, walk, scored on single.
Y. Molina, walk, scored on, um, walk.
A. Miles, walk, scored on groundout.
S. Taguchi, walk, driving in a run, scored on double.
J. Encarnacion, walk, scored on double.

That's 6 walks in 2 innings, and every one of them scored. Throw strikes dammit!

****

I'm browsing the rest of the league. I should be asleep by now, but having opened an account this past week at Bodog, I'm more curious beyond my fantasy players. Tonight's three picks:

Red Sox (Wakefield) -150 at $7.50
A nervous moment here and there, but I'm up $5.
Net: +5

A's (Haren) +138 at $5.00
I was ecstatic when I made this pick last night against Unit. I'm pissed that by game time tonight, the line had moved to +155. I don't know how to feel given that the Yankees just scored 4 in the 7th to move within a run. If there was ever a time for Huston Street to step up, the time is now!!!

11:47pm: Two outs in the ninth, with A-Rod up. This game is as good as over. Cha-ching!
11:49pm: Ball game over, thaaaaaa Yankees lose! Gimme my $6.90 Bodog!
Net: +11.90

Last but not least (ok, least)
Tigers (Bonderman) -110 at $5.50
I was sure Chacin would not last long. The Tigers lineup is deep. The Jays are too, but Bonderman's ERA is deceiving. He's much improved from last year.

I tune into the game in the bottom of the 7th, with the Tigers up 5-2. Zumaya gets through the inning scoreless. In the 8th, Jamie Walker gets the first out and in comes Fernando Rodney. After a Shea Hillenbrand homerun, the score is 5-3. Okay at least, he didn't walk. It's only a solo shot. They still have a two run lead. 'Tis a shame, but little did I know, the Tigers would not get another out... until Shea Hillenbrand batted again.

Single.
Walk.
Single.
Single. Game tied. Too bad the pain is not over.
Triple. 7-5.
Single. 8-5
Double. 9-5.
Single. At least a run didn't score.
Sac Fly. Okay fine. I'm tuning into another game.

Instead of sushi and Sapporo tomorrow, it's lamb and rice takeout from a Middle Eastern food cart, or what #1 lovingly refers to as "terrorist food." No doubt our Commander-in- Chief would accuse me of giving comfort and aid to our enemies, but I don't care, the Tigers lost and I'm out $10.50 on a bullpen implosion and their special white sauce is damn good. And no, we're not racist.
Net: +6.40

Written Rules

2006-06-05T19:27:00.000-04:00

The reason "unwritten rules" are unwritten is because they are dumb and objective. You think rickey henderson became the greatest base stealer of all time following em? Hell no, fuck that.
If the pitcher and catcher cant throw me out, then i am taking the base. If you are corey patterson and you have pretty much wasted all your potential, you MUST take that base in hopes of a higher payday.
If you dont want ARod to hit his best in blowouts, how is he gonna win those MVP trophies to escalate his $25 million salary to $25.5? A man's gotta feed his kids.

I also dont have problems with people celebrating before or after the play. For example, watching manny going into his home run trut only to have it hit the wall. Then watching manny busting his ass to 2nd base is funny every time.
As joey porter said "big players make big plays in big games." If you make a big play, you deserve your day in the sun.
If you dont want terrell owens to dance on your Dallas star, dont let him score TDs on your ass twice.

Although i am very against keeping people off the field of play during brawls. If you allow the batter to attack the pitcher BY HIMSELF, then he will have no choice then to use his bat. i rather have 30 people on each team rumble, then have one person going postal with a weapon.

Here are some rules on showboating that i think EVERYONE should follow, written or unwritten:

Most important rule of all... "In a seven game playoff series, a team must WIN FOUR GAMES to advance." Almost everyone knows this but on very rare occasions, some teams and/or fans might forget or lose track of # of wins and celebrate and taunt fans of the other team prematurely. This could eventually come back and haunt those teams/fans for the rest of their lives.
As fans, please do not make dumbass chants that make no sense. This probably go for announcers too when they give players nicknames. Case #1: Coco Crisp leads off today and yankee fans started chanting "Johnny Damon... Johnny Damon..." and i mean the entire stadium. WTF... did i miss something? Isnt Johnny Damon a True Red Sox? It doesnt make any sense. Case #2: Yankee fans chanting "Who's your daddy?" in game 7 of the 2004 ALCS and really getting into it. Hmm... taunting while on the verge of historical whooping is probably not the best timing. Also stop making those dumbass signs with words using letters from E-S-P-N or N-B-C. I did stuff like that in 5th grade during the first year in the US when i didnt speak english. Its really not that imaginative.
Do not make guarantees then not deliver or make guarantees that have no significance. Rasheed looks pretty stupid after the Cavs game. Zo looks pretty stupid guaranteeing a game 4 victory while down 0-3 in a 7 game series vs some guy named michael jordan. A kicker named Vanderjadgt calling the defending Super Bowl Champs "ripe of the picking."
As players, do not trash talk or rile up or piss off or show up those "tier zero" ultra-vengeful superstars cuz they will exert all their energy for the purpose of destroying and humiliating you. One such player is Pedro... Case #1A: Gerald Williams charging pedro after getting hit leading off the game, then having pedro no-hit the entire team rest of the way. Case #1B: Who is karim garcia? Another is Tiger Woods and his famous "9-8" which was probably THE BEST trash talking words i've ever heard. Falling in this category, do not trash talk any future hall of famers, with the exception of ARod, as nothing good can come out of it for you.
Do not trash talk guys that can physically whoop your ass or has AIDS. For example, it probably wasn't a good idea to trash talk a young Mike Tyson before a fight for the sake of boosting pay per view sales. On the other side of the spectrum, you should always be friendly and polite to Magic Johnson because you should not risk of him pulling a Mike Tyson and bite you.

Unwritten Rules

2006-06-05T17:10:00.000-04:00

Why does baseball have these "unwritten" rules that only the old timers know? Why is the catcher allowed to block the plate when the rules clearly state he isn't? (I don't want to tackle this one; Rob Neyer et al. have beaten that horse to death.) Why is a middle infielder allowed to make a phantom step on the bag in turning a double play? (Supposedly to avoid injury, but the baserunners still take out the infielders anyway.) Why is fan interference on a hit down the line always ruled a double? (Should be umpire's judgment call. The hit down the LF line at Fenway that is likely to bounce to the shortstop should only be a single.)

Frankly, I don't have a problem with any of these rules. A catcher blocking the plate assumes the high probability of being drilled. If he's okay with it, so am I. A middle infielder normally gets that call only if the ball has beaten the runner by a mile. If the runner doesn't complain, I won't either. A hit down the line is mostly likely a double anyway. As long as the umpires consistently award doubles, I have no beef.

But some of these unwritten rules are incredibly retarded. Two of these so-called rules came into play on Sunday's games involving the New York teams.

Thou Shalt Not Steal Bases Up X Runs in the Yth Inning.

Yankees at Orioles.
In the bottom of the 7th, the Orioles lead 10-4, with the Yanks having scored 4 runs in the top half. Corey Patterson leads off with a single. He proceeded to steal second, then third, and came around to score on a single, accounting for the final run of the game in a 11-4 Oriole win. Larry Bowa, the Yankees 3B coach, was not amused and expressed his displeasure from the dugout.

Bowa: "I told him to play the game the right way. That was terrible."

Apparently for Bowa, x=6 and y=7. Yum yum. Let's rip him a new asshole.

So let me get this straight: For Patterson to "play the game the right way," he is refrained from attempting to advance bases, which in turn leads to more runs for his team, which in turn helps his team win the game. I guess the right way according to Bowa is to NOT try to win the game. Judging by his managerial stops in Philly and San Diego, his record certainly reflects this philosophy. Where does this lunacy end? Is he allowed to try to stretch a double into a triple? How about breaking up a double play? Or worse yet, god forbid he hustle down the line on a grounder in the hole.

Why does baseball have this unwritten rule? If you don't want to get embarassed, how about telling your pitchers not to give up ten runs in the first six frames? How about telling Aaron Small not to give up 9 hits and 3 gopherballs in less than 3 innings? When LeBron picks off a swing pass with ten minutes to in the 4th quarter up 20, should he pass on the breakaway dunk and run down the clock instead because that wouldn't be playing the game right? Is Brady supposed to start kneeling on the football in the late 3rd quarter just because the Pats are up three TD's? Is shooting into an empty net after the goalie has been pulled ever allowed under Bowa's sordid interpretation of playing the game the right way?

Do me a favor Larry Bowa, shut the fuck up. Seriously, shut the fuck up. We don't play in the 1960's anymore where the teams averaged 6 runs a game. Combined. I am sure Corey Patterson would promise to stop running and trying for extra bases if the Yankees promised to stop scoring runs in the 8th and 9th innings. And I'm sure you can get that in writing from Torre and Perlozzo. And I'll even get it notarized for you. If you don't want to get embarassed by your opponent, here's a tip: Don't Suck.

Tw0 more points here:

1. A 6-run lead is not even remotely automatic for the O's pen. Have you seen these guys pitch? Oh yeah, and didn't the Yankees just score 4 in the top of the inning? A 10-run lead with a half-inning to go and half the starting lineup removed, okay, we might begin to have a relevant conversation.

2. Corey Patterson, with his two steals on Sunday, has stolen a base in his last eight games. This is the longest streak in ten years. If he's going for a record, I say godspeed. Hypothetical for Bowa: If A-Rod had homered in 8 straight games and were up on the Red Sox 10-1 in the 8th inning, do you let him hack away and swing for the fences? If yes, you're a hypocrite. After all, you shouldn't embarass your opponent. Granted, it's a moot point, since I'm sure Bon Bon would place one in his earhole.

Moving on...

Thou Shalt Not Demonstratively Celebrate Under Any Circumstances.

Giants at Mets.
In the bottom of the 10th, the Giants lead 7-5 when Armando Benitez comes into to close the game. After a Jose Valentin homerun sandwiched by a groundout and a strikeout, Lastings Milledge hits a homerun. Milledge comes out for his obligatory curtain call. At the start of the next inning, as he goes to his position in RF, he runs down the line and hi-fives some of the adoring fans at Shea who have been clamoring for him as the top prospect in the Met system. Some unnamed Giants were not amused and thought the youngster was showboating.

Okay, let's make this clear: Some Giants (aka Benitez and the midget he ate for lunch) were upset because Milledge got too excited after he hit his homerun. Not to mention the fact that it tied the game in extra innings. And there were two outs. Oh yeah, and it was his first major league blast. Hmm, maybe it's just me, but I don't think you can really script it any better.

Why is there this standard against exuberant celebrations in baseball? Plenty of Knicks hi-five Spike sitting in the front row. Employee Number 8 has perfected the shimmy and he doesn't get clocked in the face. Tiger fist pumps after a big putt at Augusta. Hockey players gather and congratulate each other after every goal. Even the No Fun League allows celebrations. Packers jump into the stands at Lambeau after a touchdown. Strahan swings a baseball bat after every sack. Ray Lewis practically goes nuts and auditions for Dance Dance Revolution after every tackle. Every tackle! This would be pretty much the equivalent of Richie Sexson raising the roof after every putout at first. Why aren't baseball players allowed to celebrate demonstratively? So what if Manny stares at a homerun he just crushed 500 feet? Same for Bonds, Pujols, or anyone else who smokes one long and deep. #1 poses when he hits a 9-iron 130 yards! Shit, so would I.

Again, like my tip to Larry Bowa, if you don't want to get embarassed by your opponent, Don't Suck. It's really that simple. Or if you don't like it, drill the guy in the back his next time up. Which brings up my next rule that baseball really should have in the rulebooks...

Thou Shalt Not Enter the Field of Play During Fights.

In every other league, leaving the bench area begets an automatic suspension. It's not even appealable. Look at what happened to the Knicks against the Heat when Ewing came off the bench. He missed a Game 7 in the playoffs. Now, every player, coach, trainer in the NBA is aware of the rule and hold each other back when a fight breaks out on the court. Why do the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL have this rule in place? It's to stop the fights from escalating out of control. League officials understand that emotions can boil over when testosterone and competition are mixed. Men sometimes need to slug it out. But if you can stop the other smaller fights from starting, you stand a pretty good chance of stopping the fracas in short order, without too many people hurt and half a roster suspended.

Why baseball does not have this rule in place is beyond me. First, it would immediately put an end to batters charging the mound. He'd be going one-on-nine. Three-on-nine if the coaches at first and third feel like participating. Three and a half-on-nine if the manager wants to jump into the fray. Maybe Manny would be Manny enough to try it and Ryan Howard would be big enough to do it. But anyone with an IQ over 6.3 would realize he'd get the shit beaten out of him. There's power in sheer numbers. The people at the Alamo put up a good fight, but last I checked, they were all shot dead by Mexican bullets.

Second, the retarded umpires would no longer need to issue warnings. Simply let the players take care of it on the field. The intentional beanings would stop. There'd be no vicious cycle. If a pitcher drills another player intentionally, one of his batters will get drilled in return. Eventually, his batters will tell the pitcher to knock it off since they don't feel like getting plunked. If he continues throwing at opposing hitters, that pitcher will get plunked. If he still doesn't get the message, you can bet he won't last too long in the league. He'd be the definition of clubhouse cancer. Not only that, but he'd raise the injury risk for his team as a whole. I'm sure no GM wants that.

As a result, if a batter gets plunked, there's immediate retaliation, and it's over. There'd be no bench clearing brawls. There'd be little ill will carried over from series to series. There'd be no suspensions. There'd be no bitching through the media. There'd be no watching Julian Tavarez try to throw a punch. Sigh. If only.

Medic!

2006-06-04T01:09:00.000-04:00

Injuries in the last 3 days are wrecking havoc on contenders and All-Stars throughout the league. I don't remember the last time so many big names went down in a span of days.

Yankees
Victim: Mariano Rivera
Diagnosis: Back spasms from, um, putting on his cleat.
Prognosis: I thought this stuff only happened to retirees with one leg and rheumatoid arthritis. While it doesn't sound too bad since the Yanks haven't placed him on the DL, Farnsworth at the back of the pen must make Yankee fans shudder. Mo better get back there soon.
Return Date: Less than a week.

Victim: Gary Sheffield
Diagnosis: Torn ligament, dislocated tendon, broken hamate bone in left wrist; surgery likely.
Prognosis: Cashman said recently that the best case scenario is a month. In GM lingo, he's OFY with a September return possible. Good thing they didn't pick up his option. In the words of Ken the Hawk Harrelson: He GONE!
Return Date: Spring training, 2007.

Victim: Alex Rodriguez
Diagnosis: Stomach ailment.
Prognosis: Sounds like hepatitis A to me.
Return Date: Early next week.

As a result of all this, the Yankee lineup looks worse and worse by the day. This is who they trotted out there Saturday night against the O's:

Damon CF
Cabrera LF
Jeter SS
Posada C
Williams DH
Phillips 1B
Cano 2B
Cairo 3B
Thompson RF

Ouch.

Red Sox
Victim: Mike Timlin
Diagnosis: Strained right shoulder.
Prognosis: His absence makes the Sox pen smell like swiss cheese.
Return Date: Next Saturday.

Victim: Wily Mo Pena
Diagnosis: Broken hamate bone, right wrist.
Prognosis: Don't say I didn't warn you, circa 7:22pm. Trot's going to have to hit against lefties. While not a huge loss since he's not a regular, it does weaken the bench and the an already weak bottom of lineup.
Return Date: 8/1

Cards
Victim: Monster Pujols
Diagnosis: Strained right oblique.
Prognosis: The best player in the league hurt himself reaching for a foul ball against the Cubs on Saturday. LaRussa has already said he'd be ecstatic if 2 weeks were all it took. Doesn't sound good for Pujols or the Cards. He's such an offensive force that they'll lose close to 2 runs without him in the lineup. If he's out a month, he could cost them 4-5 wins. While they're still the best team in the division, this could be the difference between the playoffs and golf in October.
Return Date: 7/5

White Sox
Victim: Jim Thome
Diagnosis: Pulled groin.
Prognosis: Guillen is hoping he can play early next week. And if it lingers at all, he promises to keep Thome off the field during interleague play at NL parks. Doesn't sound terribly serious, although with interleague play, it will mean 10 games off for Thome in total.
Return Date: Next week.

Mets
Victim: Carlos Beltran
Diagnosis: Bruised right knee.
Prognosis: Little Carlito has missed the last three starts, although he did pinch hit in each game of the doubleheader on Saturday against the Giants. But it's clear he's not ready to play the field yet. Given their lead in the NL East and the somewhat treacherous conditions on the East Coast these days, Willie would be wise to make sure he's healthy before sending him back out on the field.
Return Date: 5 days.

Dodgers
Victim: Jeff Kent
Diagnosis: Sprained left wrist.
Prognosis: Kent was placed on the 15-day DL, retroactive to 5/28. He had already missed a week. His power numbers are down for the year. You wonder if this will affect him the rest of the year. At his age, the string of 100 RBI seasons is likely over. An 18/80 season would be great at this point.
Return Date: 6/15

Here are some others of note. These guys just don't seem right from my observations. It is pure speculation whether they are hiding injuries.

Helton: He doesn't drive/pull the ball with authority anymore. His back might not allow him to ever hit 25 HRs again.
K-Rod: He used to hit 95 on the gun easily. Now it seems his fastball is topping out at 91, making him much more hittable. This was almost inevitable given his delivery.
Berkman: His knee flared up twice in the last two weeks. His body type, i.e., beer belly, suggests he probably needs to get in better shape.
Turnbow: His fastball has always been straight. I think the league just figured him out. Then again, he's lost velocity as well.
Beltre: Looks like 'roid withdrawal to me. And no contract year doesn't help.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

2006-06-01T22:11:00.000-04:00

I love stats. Anyone who loves baseball does. Anyone who plays fantasy baseball obsesses over them.

But dammit, they lie. Espeically when it comes to pitchers. NL Cy Young voters, please begin taking notes now.

We begin this exercise with, who else, Pedro Martinez. His stats for the year, through Thursday:
5-1, 75.2IP, 44H, 17BB, 88K, 2.50ERA, 0.81WHIP

Let's break it down a little more. Here are his splits for April and May, respectively:
5-0, 33.2IP, 19H, 11BB, 33K, 2.94ERA, 0.89WHIP
0-1, 42.0IP, 25H, 6Bb, 55K, 2.14ERA, 0.74WHIP

Pedro was great in April. He won his first five starts. The numbers are actually skewed by his bad opening start against the Nats when he was still in spring training mode. May? He was of the 2001 vintage. His control got better, and he was absolutely dominant. Yet, his first winless month of his career as a starter resulted from a combination of blown saves (Armando Wagner) and little run support. With average luck and a 2.50ERA on the best team in the National League, Pedro should be somewhere near 7-2, just a win behind the league leaders at 8. This is not surprising.

This is surprising: Pedro has actually pitched better than even his ERA might indicate. His WHIP of 0.81 is astronomical relative to the league. Of the 99 starters who currently have enough inning to qualify, the median whip is 1.35 (Carlos Zambrano). Only two other pitchers are below 1.00 (Moose 0.96, Contreras 0.98). His other relevant peripherals with rankings in the majors:

-5.2K/BB ratio, 5th
-10.5K/9 ratio, 1st
-66.9 Average Game Score, 1st
-.169 BAA, 1st (no one else is below .200)
-.229 OBPA, 1st
-.297 SLGA, 2nd
-.525 OPSA, 1st

The Sabermetricians have always relied more on these peripherals as a predictor of future performance rather than ERA. When you put these numbers together with Bill James's Runs Created/27 outs formula, you arrive at an even more staggering number for Pedro: His Expected Runs Created Against (ERC) per 27 outs is 1.67 (Contreras is next at 2.01).

The implication is that even beyond Wagner and very mediocre run support, Pedro has been unlucky. To determine how unlucky he (or rather, his ERA) has been, we simply need to compare his ERC to his ERA (ERC%). In his case, it's 0.67. Meaning his peripherals suggest his expected ERA should be about 1/3 lower than his actual ERA. How bad is this? Well, it's the worst in the league.

You might say that this is all statistical mumble jumble. As someone with a limited rigorous statistical education, I'm sometimes more inclined to believe what my eyes tell me. For anything beyond remedial math and statistics in this blog, you'll have to turn to #1. But in this case, the numbers don't lie. And even I'm intelligent enough to grasp this. In fact, ERC% follows the standard distribution flawlessly. And the numbers bare it out.

Given the 99 pitchers with enough IP to qualify, we would expect the mean and the median ERC% to be exactly 1. After all, luck evens out across a large enough sample size. Here they are:
-Median ERC%: 0.97, Brian Moehler.
-Median 10%: 1.00 to 0.95 (-2.5%).
-Median 50%: 1.07 to 0.87 (-3.0%)
-First: 1.34 (+34%), Paul Paholm.
-Last: 0.67 (-33%), Pedro Martinez.
-Top 10%: 1.22 (+22%)
-Bottom 10%: 0.78 (-22%)
-Top 35%: 1.04 (+4%)
-Bottom 35%: 0.93 (-7%)

The curve seems to be slightly askewed towards bad luck by around 3%. I'm pretty sure this is statistically insignificant. (For verification, you'll have to ask #1).

Um, I forgot my original point... Oh yeah, Pedro's fucking awesome!

******

#1 pointed out in his notes yesterday that he's afraid for Papelbon because he averages 4.00 pitches per batter faced. I'm afraid for Papelbon as well, but because he's going to throw in too many games. I think appearances are much more worrisome than pitches per batter faced as they are more indicative of number of pitches thrown. This includes pitches thrown in the pen, warm up pitches on the mound, and more warm up pitches to restart an inning. Pitches per batter faced are much more relevant for starters because they face many more batters over the course of the season, but only warm up in the bullpen to enter a game once every five days. An extra 0.25 pitches per batter faced over the course of the season can add up to 275 pitches over the course of the season for a starter. For a reliever, I doubt it adds up to any more than 80 pitches over the course of the season.

Random Thoughts

2006-05-31T17:28:00.000-04:00

I havent watched a sox game in 5 days. Lately i've been following the yankees bullpen mor cuz its a lot more entertaining.
Yesterday, when the yankees were leading 6-1 in the 4th, i messaged Gong "so who is gonna blow it today?" The winner: Kyle Farnsworth. Yankee fans should get use to it. 6-1 leads is not a score your bullpen can hold. I like how torre is managing it like a playoff game. Erickson, proctor, farnsworth all go one inning and Mo goes 3. thats just retarded. Come september, the only fresh arm outta the yankee pen will be $32 mil Carl Pavano and mike myers.
Domination = Cat Osterman of Texas Longhorn's women's softball. I was watching her pitch and her stats for the NCAA tourney was something like 75 strikeouts vs 8 hits and she averages 2+ k's per inning, with 17 no-hitters.
Adrian Beltre's OPS for the season: .594.
Alexis Rios's Slugging: .644. He is the next Upside. He is rarely off balance on the offspeed pitches. I dont know the difference between this year and last year but i havent seen any particular pitch or location Rios cannot handle despite a large strike zone with him being 6-5. At least not yet. Sad thing is that he is on the block for our keepers league. i dont got room to keep him.
I am getting an eerie feeling that Papelbon is gonna get hurt after reading Buster's blog today. I checked the number of pitches per batter faced. Papelbon is at 4.0 pitches per batter. Gagne 2003 cy young season was 3.88. Pedro/Mousse/Schmidt/Rivera are all around 3.87 as most of the pitchers are in the 3.85-3.88 range. Oswalt is at 3.68. Buerhle is at 3.55. Roy Halladay is at 3.44. Webb not surprisingly is at 3.38. Conclusion? Too many pitches for papelbon, need to pitch to contact earlier in the count. Francona really needs to use seanz and taverez more.
Chad Pennington is a joke, he really really sucks. I feel bad for Jets fans cuz they could've had Leinhart. Pretty much Pennington cannot throw the deep ball and if you cannot go deep vs the new flavor of the NFL 3-4 defense, its only a matter of time before the QB goes down. Now i think about it, whats the best way to attack the 3-4 defense? good TE's that can both block and catch passes... such as ben watson. Thus, Belichick is a genius.

Monster Pujols

2006-05-30T17:53:00.000-04:00

Overheard this on the Angels broadcast between Steve Physioc and Wonder Dog Rex Hudler:

Steve: Guess who hit another homerun today?
Rex: Who?
Steve: Albert Pujols hit his 25th.
Rex: I was going to say Thome.
Steve: Jim Thome? He hit two!

Commence Rob Neyer Impersonation, now.

As great a comeback season as Thome has had, Pujols is blowing away the field in every offensive category. It boggles my mind that managers and pitchers continue to throw to him. It seems like he hits one every other game. Oh yeah, he does: he has 25 HRs in 49 games. Ridiculous. And just wait 'til it gets hot in the midwest. People say he won't get near 73. I disagree. If Rolen and Edmonds can stay healthy behind him, and he doesn't walk 200 times, I think he can come real close. It's entirely realistic if not expected for him to hit 10 HRs a month the rest of the year. If he does, he's at 65. If he manages 11 per, he's at 69. After that, it's just a matter of luck and how many times managers decide to put on the IBB when the game's not on the line.

Has anyone in baseball ever had the start to his career as Pujols has had? Baseball-Reference.com thinks its Joe DiMaggio. In fact, the similarities are eerie. Unfortunately, DiMaggio's career line the rest of the way doesn't offer us much in the way of comparison. Joltin' Joe's career tailed off (relative only to what he had accomplished in his first five years) after his sixth season at age 26, posting only one season with an OBP over .400 (though three others above .390) and no seasons with an SLG over .600 (two others over .590). He missed out on what most likely would have been three great seasons due to WWII between 1943-1945 in the prime of his career at ages 28-30. And he also had a cute little vixen named Marilyn Monroe on the side. With all due respect to Mrs. Pujols, she ain't no Marilyn Monroe. (And yes, I've seen pictures of her. She's a solid Quad-A wife. Jose Lima's wife, on the other hand...)

What can we expect from Pujols for the next five years? Well, I'm not really sure, and I don't think anyone else is either. Assuming his age is true and he's still peeing in the cup regularly per MLB's steroid policy, there's really been no one like him. Vlad is somewhat similar, although I don't think anyone who has seen either play would see them as similar hitters. And let's be honest, as great as Vlad is, he's just not as good a hitter as Pujols is.

Digging through the archives, I found only two other players beside DiMaggio who has posted similar numbers through their first five years at comparable ages: Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, and Hank Aaron. This isn't all that surprising. It only confirms that our eyes have not been deceiving us the entire time: Albert Pujols is going to be an all-time great. Not just a first-ballot HOFer, but someone who's going to wind up as one of the ten best hitters in history.

Resumes, Anyone?

2006-05-26T15:17:00.000-04:00

Editor's Update: Derek Jeter, this blog salutes you on your 2,000th hit. While still overrated by the New York media, you are as clutch a performer as anyone outside New England. Ryan Dempster, on the other hand, you're still a fucking cocksucker!!!

Editor's Update: Ryan Dempster, you fucking cocksucker!!!

As Memorial Day nears, most teams have an idea of where they're headed, what they need, and who they're targeting in trades. Billy Beane always said that he takes a third of the season to figure out what he needs, a third of the season to get what he needs, then the last third for his plan to come together and his team to play it out. It's a good plan, but still doesn't help me in my fantasy keeper league. I can't decide whether to start trading picks next near for fringe players that will help immediately, or to start trading my pieces and build for next year when about half my team hit their primes at the same time. I don't know whether I want to move up or down in the standings. A quandry indeed.

Ahead to this weekend's games. And some random people who should not have jobs.

Braves at Cubs.
This afternoon's game pits Hudson against Zambrano (the one with a right elbow ligament) and both have been on fire. Hudson is 3-1 with a 2.29 ERA in five May starts, and Z is 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA in four May starts.

The Cubs need to blow up their team, like now. They're not only bad, but they have no heart. Losing Lee hurt, but when you're hitting Pierre, Cedeno, Walker, and Barrett in the 1-4 holes, you're not supposed to win any games. Did Jim Hendry really did turn down Tejada for Prior this past winter? I don't understand how he got an extension, let alone a job.

The Braves are kicking again in the NL East. Michael Kay, aka John Sterling's ex-caddy, said on his radio show back in late April when the Mets were 5.5 games ahead: "The Braves are done." I would estimate his baseball IQ at approximately square root of 5. It amazes me that someone with 20 years experience covering baseball (supposedly) would make that kind of remark. It seems he was asleep for the for the last dozen division titles. Idiot.

Rays at Red Sox.
Beckett threw six shutout innings last night.

Flashback of conversation...

#1: ah fuck
#2: what? beckett's pitching great
#1: kazmir's starting tomorrow
#2: uh-oh
#1: you cannot show up kazmir like this!
#2: i expect nothing less than 7 shutout innings with double digit k's
#1: he's gonna fucking no-hit us!
#2: total ownership
#1: fucking mets!
#2: this might be a worse trade than the time Ken Williams...

End Snippet.

If Kazmir wins 16+ games on the Rays, how can you NOT give him the Cy Young? Thankfully, ex-GM Jim Duquette does not have a job. Oh shit, I was wrong! And you wonder why this team has less hope than the Rays.

The Sox are just kinda chuggin' along, winning the games they should. They do expect Coco back sometime in the next week. I cant wait. Coco in front of a scorching Loretta, Papi, and an even more scorching Manny. Yum yum. The runs should come in bunches. The Sox have 6 sacrifice bunts this year; Alex Gonzalez, not the one that retired this week, but the one who should be next week, has 5. Hmm. I'm not saying he shouldn't have a job. I'm saying he shouldn't have one that pays $3 mil per.

Royals at Yankees.
Baird, Glass, Bell, Elarton, Gobble, Dessens, Buck, Grudzkfdhasfdsa, Mientkahgjahrjn... Oh, and did you know Emil Brown is 32??!! This might explain 13 and counting.

The Yanks recovered nicely to win the series at Fenway. But they're so beat up, it's not even funny. Wright got nailed on a comebacker and might miss a astart. Pavano just had elbow surgery. Posada has a torn tendon in his hammy. Sheffield has a broken bone in his hand. Damon has a broken bone in his toe. Unit's missing a brain and a heart. Stuff like this is inevitable when your team is this old. In other news, Terrence Long is in the majors. Let's harken back to my favorite announcer. Michael Kay on Long: "He's a fine offensive player, but he's a terrible defensive player." Do you actually think before you speak? Do ya? DO YA? Fucking moron. And the FAQs clearly state that I hate morons.

MY Notes: Games #2 & #3

2006-05-25T13:45:00.002-04:00

Game 2: Wright vs Wakefield
- I only watches a couple of innings today.
- Pretty much this game is a must win for the yankees because unit is pitching on wednesday.
- Fenway fans beware: Sheffield is back on the prowl. Do not make eye contact with him cuz he might punch you for no reason. Especially if you are a school teacher. Lucky for the RF fans, he is DH'ing tonight.
- We are hitting jaret wright like a piñata but cant score.
- So much for the Yankees' new so-called setup guy for Mo, scott proctor. Manny owns him with a 500 feet hr to straight away CF. I have never seen a ball hit THAT FAR to centerfield, by anyone, in any ball park. i like how the yankees complain that manny is showboating... thats just the way manny is, he never tries to show anyone up. Ever heard of manny being manny?
Here is a tip, when you give up a 500 feet hr to CF in a non-hr derby event, put your head down, stfu, and stfu some more, ok? Btw, we just ruined scott proctor for the season.
- yankees pitchers today: Wright, proctor, myers, farnsworth, mo. it reminds me of that book Number 2 has with all the Absolute Vodka ads, some of them are pretty ingenius. Absolute should make a new ghetto bronx flavor called "Absolute Garbage" the picture would be the yankee's bullpen.

Game 3: Randy vs Clement
- didnt watch the game today cuz i know what's gonna happen. I went to play golf instead.
- My prediction for randy today was 6 innings, 5 runs. Incredibly enough, randy failed reach my mediocore expectations.
- I predict that matt clement will probably match unit's suckiness. What happened to this guy? He was an all-star last year.
- Randy goes 5, forces torre to go to some dude named scott erickson. Uh... absolute garbage...
- Looks like torre settled on his setup roles for mo. Proctor comes in and gets owned again. like i said he is done. Farnsworth strikes out papi looking on a high meatball. Thats just Absolute Garbage x2... i dont know what papi was looking for. All of you yankee fans KNOW you got away with one there... throw that shit in the playoffs and i guarantee you papi puts 3 runs on the board.
- rudy, taverez, foulkes comes in to shut the yankees out for half the game.

Even though yankees won the series, they still lost.
- posada pulls a hammy, need MRI. Not good for catchers but good news for randy.
- you guys just lost proctor for the season. i'd be shocked if he gets 3 outs unscathed vs the sox once this year.
- ARod's street cred takes another hit. Manny posing after hr = cool. ARod posing after hr = jackass. sad thing is this is just the beginning, ARod has to deal with this for another 10 years. It will never stop.
- randy johnson dont got it this year. its actually pretty pathetic...

On a side note, my fantasy team put up the follow stats on tuesday:
13 runs, 8 hrs, 28 rbis
7.2 ip, 11 k, 2 holds, 2 earn runs (all by relievers)

bonbon!

2006-05-23T16:53:00.000-04:00

how can you forget about papelbon?
he is so good that as soon as he starts warming up in the bullpen, yankees pops up and the game ends.

his line yesterday:
- some warmup pitches,
- red sox win.

Cy Youngs: 1.5
All-Star Appearances: 10.5
ERA Titles: 3
K Titles: 4.5

i'll take under for all 4.

Young Guns

2006-05-23T16:27:00.000-04:00

Speaking of phenoms, there were quite a few fine performances by young pitchers this weekend, ranging from good to great. Notice King --> Squire --> Peon Felix didnt make the cut. Which ones will bomb? My guess is at least 2/3 won't reach 50 wins. Over/under anyone?

Cy Youngs: 1.5
All-Star Appearances: 10.5
ERA Titles: 3
K Titles: 4.5

Boof Bonser, Twins
6IP, 5H, 1R, 3BB, 8K, 97-58, ND(0-0), 1.50ERA

Taylor Buchholz, Astros
9IP, 5H, 0R, 0BB, 6K, 102-72, W(3-3), 4.35ERA

Matt Cain, Giants
9IP, 1H, 0R, 3BB, 5K, 120-80, W(2-5), 5.47ERA

Scott Kazmir, Rays
8IP, 4H, 0R, 1BB, 11K, 119-76, W(7-1), 2.39ERA

Anthony Reyes, Cards - Season Debut
5.2IP, 4H, 0R, 1BB, 1K, 81-56, W(1-0), 0.00ERA

Jeff Francis, Rockies
6IP, 4H, 1R, 3BB, 2K, 86-53, W(3-3), 3.07ERA

Josh Johnson
6.2IP, 5H, 2R, 2BB, 4K, 109-67, ND(3-2), 2.62ERA

Zach Duke, Pirates
7.0IP, 4H, 3R, 6BB, 6K, 119-63, L(2-5), 4.19ERA

Mike O'Connor, Nats
6.0IP, 6H, 2R, 3B, 5K, 98-62, L(2-2), 2.89ERA

Francisco Liriano
5IP, 2H, 1R, 3BB, 5K, 68-41, W(2-0), 2.96ERA

Robinson Tejeda
5IP, 2H, 1R, 4BB, 6K, 102-55, ND(1-1), 6.23ERA

Link of the Day: Our friend BatGirl reconstructs the battle of AJ v. Barrett. Literally.

PROGRAMMING NOTES: Posts are constantly being updated and photos uploaded. Please scroll down or click on links to previous posts to see the changes we've made.

My Notes: Yanks-Sox Game #1

2006-05-22T21:53:00.001-04:00

Schilling on his game. He is treating the yankees hitters as if he is pitching on a torn bloody ankle.

Bottom 3rd:
- typical youk walks on full count
- loretta uses the big hole on the right side, professional hitter
- papi aka "da true mvp" comes thru. sox takes lead.
- manny jacks a lollipop to straight away CF. Game over.

yankees staff:
- last two starts, wang went 80+ pitches thru 8. today vs sox... 80+ pitches thru 6.
- wang cant get an out in the 7th so villone comes in.
- followed by some cartoon character named "Colter Bean" who gets in trouble. Welcome back Colter is in order. Warming in the pen... Scott Erickson. hahahahaha good stuff.
- wtf is with this garbage yankee staff. please dont bring that shit in here.

Top 9th:
- foulke comes in in non-save situation spells trouble. particularly with arod due up with his team down EIGHT!
- Jackpot!!! In typical AROD fashion, he hits a majestic HR way over the green monster on the FIRST PITCH which was right down the middle. Score 9-3. If the score was 9-8, he would have taken that pitch then GIDP. boring...
- If i was at fenway park, i would have started the "MVP MVP" chant as he rounds the bases cuz thats what arod is... an MVP.

Yankees, Red Sox. Wang, Schilling. It's on Bitch!

2006-05-22T19:06:00.000-04:00

I'll be live blogging tonight's game. Have always wanted to do one of these, just for kicks. Let's hope my mlb.tv feed doesn't get cut off. Orsillo and Remy over Kay, Kaat, and Singleton any day of the week.

Game on!

The Lineups:

Judas
Jeter
Jiambi
AFraud
Jorgie
Cano
Bernie
Long
Melky

Yuuuuuuuuuuuke
Loretta
Papi
Manny being Manny
Trot
Cap'n
Lowell
Harris
Cora

7:09
Wang has pitched very well in his last three starts. He (3.79ERA) has actually pitched better than Schilling (4.17ERA).

7:11
Damon gets booed again, but it's almost like the crowd doesn't care much anymore.

7:14
Schilling goes 123, K'ing Jiambi with a high fastball. He hasn't been good since his much publicized 133 pitch outing a few starts ago. I've seen him pitch. I'm not buying that garbage. He's just serving up gopherballs with bad location. I think he'll be just fine. Truth is, he was pretty lucky in his first few starts. I expect a 3.50+ ERA by the end of the year.

7:18
Wang is one of those pitchers incapable of dominating the Red Sox but will somehow give the Yanks a chance to win. They're too patient to swing at a bunch of first pitches, but they're also not going to get huge innings. True, most likely his pitch count will rise too high for him to go more than 6 inning, but at least he wont leave them down six runs when he leaves.

7:22
Wily Mo got the night off due to a wrist injury; they say it's precautionary. I just get a feeling he's going on the DL.

7:30
MOTHERFUCKER!!! The Reds are up 5-0 after 5 batters. Walk. Single. Homerun. Walk. Homerun. Yes, I started David Bush tonight. I need a beer. My team ERA is going above 4 unless he guts out 5 more shutout innings. And fuck you too Buchholz. And you too Cain. But I'll be looking forward to your next start.

7:33
Schilling strikes out Posada and Cano on splitters to end the inning. I hate to pile it on because of their injuries, but that's a NL lineup they're trotting out there. That shouldn't happen with a $200 mil payroll.

7:38
I just realized that the Sox have Willie Harris and Alex Cora in the bottom of their lineup. I'll shut up now.

7:40
Random thought: Does John Sterling TRY to annoy people, or does he genuinely think people like his call? Do Yankee fans actually enjoy it? Tha Yankees Win! Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Yankees WIN! Shut the fuck up bitch! OTOH, it actually is pretty amusing.

7:46
Yanks go ahead on a Damon single after a Melky double. Jeter fights off an 0-2 fastball down the middle, letter high to RF for 1st and 2nd. This is why Schilling hasn't been doing well. He's throwing fat pitches ahead in the count.

7:52
Jiambi is putting up a great AB. Of course, Remy had the same thought I did. We're on 9 pitches.

7:53
Ten pitches, P-5

7:55
Just saw a Bertucci commercial. Damn, that food looks good. For those unfamiliar, Bertucci's this brick-oven pizza chain in the Boston area. The crusts are unbeatable. Except by New Haven pizza. And Nick's in Forest Hills, Queens.

8:02
Wang's really pounding the strike zone. Even his fast pitches are moving a ton. He's the one Yankee I cannot root against.

8:04
Posada just tried to backhand a pitch in the dirt to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with Papi up. May not be the worst thing in the world.

8:06
Papi singles to left on a 3-0 pitch. Wang/Posada/Torre should know that he always has the green light 3-0 and you cant just throw me a get-me-over pitch. I'm ambivalent about whether an IBB would be best there. On the one hand, Papi murders the Yankees. But it's only the 3rd inning against a good offense; you don't really want to put more runners on base with Manny. Thoughts anyone?

8:08
Moot point afterall. Manny just nailed one to dead center. 4-1 Sox. Hey! Coco's in uniform. How does one get kidney stones anyway?

8:12
Holy shit! Varitek almost took off Wang's head on a liner, but he somehow caught it? Wow. I think he actually ducked into it. Replays will tell.

8:14
7-1 Reds. Excuse me while I go drop David Bush for a Rockies reliever. I wish I were kidding.

8:20
Just saw the Astros boxscore. They finally put Taveras in the leadoff spot, switching him with Biggio. Not sure what took Garner so long to make this change: Taveras cant steal with Berkman batting behind him.

8:26
Melky = Asshole of the day. Youk hit a slice flyball into the RF corner. Melky makes a nice catch along the wall where Sheffield had his incident last year. He tosses the ball to a fan, who drops it back onto the field. Melky then hesitates for a second, then jogs off and motions for the ballgirl down the line to get it for him. He wasn't more than 10 feet away from the ball. That, Melky, earns you the Asshole of the Day.

8:35
Melky GIDP 6-4-3. Middle 5th, 4-1 Sox. So far, not much going on. This game is completely devoid of drama. Doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon.

8:38
Tina Cervasio, the on-field reporter for NESN, is utterly unspectacular and brings close to nothing to the table, ranking her above Duke Castiglione and below Bonnie Berstein. Cant NESN hire Suzy Kolber? As you can tell, this game is boring me to death.

8:45
Damon swings like a woman. (No offense to women).

8:50
Schilling at 82 pitches after 6.

8:55
NESN just showed a typical Manny being Manny moment. On an old clip, he's laughing and gesturing as Schilling is going over his notes. Funny shit.

9:00
Wang has actually pitched pretty well. Only 7 baserunners through 6. He's just been a little unlucky as the Sox managed to string together 3 hits after a walk, ending with a homer by Manny, accounting for all four runs. He's gotten 11 groundball outs, a good ratio for sinkerballer like him. With the way Timlin and Papelbon have pitched recently, Yanks need to score at least one in the 7th.

9:01
Posada pops to shallow left with ARod on 1st, yet Manny lobs it back to Lowell? Remy is quite confused as well.

9:02
Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuke! 3-6-3 DP to end the inning. A good throw to second was the key.

9:10
Break time. Game getting boring. Cora just reached on a bunt single. He was sacrificing, but the bunt was too good and Jiambi had no play. Taking a break after Youk's AB. He just doubled as I'm typing. 5-1 Sox.

9:36
7-1 Sox. Colter Bean is in. While he doesn't throw like a woman like Damon does, he does throw funky. I don't recall another submariner who was also a fat guy. Basic understanding of Newtonian physics, i.e., gravity would lead one to believe the fat submariners would simply topple over. But Bean somehow avoids this? More investigation is required.

9:43
Aha! Bean's delivery is not quite the same as other submariners, i.e., Kim. Other submariners pitch with a closed shoulder towards the plate, with the arm to follow from below. Bean actually opens his shoulder much sooner and he doesn't fall towards the third base side as he delivers as most submariners do. Whoever taught him how to pitch probably needs to find a new profession. 9-1 Sox.

9:45
Foulke comes in to mop up, as he only worked a-third of an inning in the Philly series. Schilling's line:
8IP, 5H, 1R, 0BB, 6K, 99-72. Yanks couldn't put much together.

9:48
What a shocker, AFraud homers down 8 runs. Hmm, Posada just blasted one out. Tito, please do NOT warm up anyone in the pen. The tying run isn't on deck, nor in Massachusetts. Of course, Tony La Russa would have Izzy in the game already.

9:50
Ok, Cano just shot one over Willie Harris's head in dead center for a double. Tito, as expected, warms up Papelbon. Why????? It's a 5 run game!!! Shit like this winds up hurting you in September. Of course, I'd be freaking out if this were 2003. But after 2004, moments like this don't freak me out anymore.

9:52
Fuck, Bernie just yanked one down the RF line. 9-5, but now Papelbon is getting serious. Still not worried. Just one of those things that'll happen every once in awhile. No big deal, other than bad for Foulke's final season line.

9:54
Long pops up to end the game. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Yankees LOSE!!! I'm still pissed Tito decided to warm up Papelbon. Over and out.

Phenoms vs Busts

2006-05-22T15:43:00.000-04:00

Phenoms vs Busts:
I think the term "phenom" and "bust" are used too loosely.
Whats a phenom? Whats a bust? Can you be both?
Can a player be a phenom and not be a bust? or vice versa, not be a phenom but still a bust?

For example, one of my fantasy players michael cuddyer is putting up really good numbers this year. Is he a phenom? No, because he is too old to be consider as one. Was he a phenom? Yes, i think he was ranked a one of the best prospects in the twins system along with rasto and mohr. he also happened to be the only one that was not traded. In general conversation, i would say that a "phenom" is someone who is much more advanced than his peers relative to age, kinda like a kid who skipped a grade or 2 in elementary school. It seems to me that "phenom" is a word that was made up to describe two players with similar skill sets but one is younger or considerably younger.

So what's my point? Why do people even care about AGE when evaluating players, in particular baseball players? There are 50 rounds in a baseball draft not including supplemental drafts. There will ALWAYS be a supply of talent that is one year younger than the previous year. If that's the case, why do people get so caught up on these so called "phenoms" when they are readily available every draft at one year younger? Lets say there are two players with exactly the same stats ages 25 and 28. The player who is 25 is better right? If you answer yes, then you've evaluated these two players with the same blinding ignorance that plagues GMs and scouts today, which leads to my next point.

What is a bust? Pretty much i think the term "bust" can be summed up in two words... "unfulfilled expecatations." One person, lets say a certain Cubs fan, can call kerry wood and mark prior as "busts" while another, lets say a red sox fan, does not. So whats the difference? It is their difference in expectation. Cubs fans say WOW!!! the first time they see wood/prior and think World Series. BoSox fans say "Hmm... not bad." Going back to the previous point on age, GMs and scouts today seem to value age a lot more heavily than it should be. Every one of them idiots are looking for that special player that is ahead of the learning curve. Problem with this is that just because a player is ahead of the learning curve at 19 or 20 DOES NOT mean he will be ahead of the learning curve at at 24 or 25. GMs and scouts hope that these players ALWAYS stay ahead of the average learning curve at every age... but is it really true? isnt this unfair expectation? Is kerry wood better than bronson arroyo at this point? Who will be better in the next 2-3 years? how can you tell?

The problem with these so called "phenoms" is that immediately they are given extremely high expectations that are rarely met. Terming them "busts" after x amount of years of service is completely arbitrary and pointless. It might be more fair to judge all of them at some arbitrary age, such as 28. Simply put, every one of these special players will grow and decay at their own rate and sustain their peak/career years also independent of other players. Suppose you have 2 good young players with the same stats ages 22 and 24, and you know both will have similar productive years until age 30. Which one would you choose? The answer... age is irrelevant, there is no difference between the two players. The key isnt how young or old or how many years of service a young player is projected to provide. The key lies in being able develop the farm systems to provide replacements once the player is used up, whether its 6 or 8 years. Then keep cycling the talent pool via the draft. Thus the Billy Beane's School of GM.

Personally, given all the sports that i've watched, i have never seen one so called "phenom" that made me say holy shit, with two exceptions... allen iverson as a freshman at georgetown and upside.

Sunday's Links

2006-05-21T10:36:00.000-04:00

Beckett managed to hit 100mph on the Comcast gun last night. Absurd.

Anyone else see that Ryan Howard pop-up homerun? That stadium is still a joke. But a funny joke since I have Howard in my perpetual keeper league.

Nick Cafardo with his the Globe's Sunday notes, profiling Bidge. Compare Biggio's career numbers with what Jeter's likely to finish. Now switch their teams for some perspective on why Jeter's not one of the best players in the game. Because Biggio sure wasn't. But a HOFer nonetheless.

Bob Ryan on Bonds. Murray Chass on Bonds. Yawn.

Jim Caple thinks Ruth is bigger than Aaron. And he's right. When reporters go crazy on Bonds and say people hate him because of steroids not because he's eclipsing Ruth, then say there's no tinge of racism because 714 isn't the record, you ever notice that the reporters are nearly all middle-aged white males? Earth to white America: Racism still exists!!!

Armando Wagner has a nice ring to it. Stop ruining Pedro's starts you bitch. Pedro should have 7 wins.

Stick a fork in 'em, the Cubs are done. Go Commies!

When Barrett goes wild. At least Barrett doesn't punch like a pitcher. My question: why did AJ get tossed? He shouldn't get a suspension either.

The rampaging Twins! Cuddyer's getting hot. Maybe he's finally found his stroke. Boof Bonser, acquired with Liriano and Nathan, starts today. He was actually the more touted prospect.

Bond says he's glad we can all watch Albert Pujols now. But he needs a better nickname.

Larry Stone of the Seattle Times lists the free agent class. Is gathering a list of names really journalism?

Meche is pitching better. Hello, Omar?

Buster Olney makes a great point on Russ Springer plunking Bonds:

If, in fact, he actually threw at him with intent, his was among the most gutless acts in baseball in recent memory. Talked to some players this week and they feel that within the unwritten code shared by players, you are allowed one shot at a player in a brushback or retaliation situation, maybe two in extenuating circumstances. If you miss a hitter with one or two pitches, then that's your fault, and you move on. But to throw a baseball at a prone target five straight times is absurd. Let's flip the situation around: What if some hitter decides he doesn't like Russ Springer; is he then allowed to run to the mound and fire his bat at him from 10 feet away, and then do it again and again if he misses the first time?
Delmon Young got a 50-game suspension for throwing his bat at an umpire, largely because he could've seriously injured a mostly defenseless colleague with his irrational action. If Springer intended to hit Bonds, over and over, then I don't know if his act really was any different. The fact that a lot of people don't like Bonds doesn't lend license to risk injuring the guy.

Speaking of which, why hasn't Bernie been suspended for his bat toss at the umpire?

When do phenoms become busts?

2006-05-20T12:01:00.000-04:00

Editor's Note: Guest post courtesy of a full-time Cubs fan and a part-time ChiSox frontrunner.

As my first post, I would like to discuss the lifespan of phenoms and having great potential/up side. Being a die hard Chicago fan, both north and south.. yes it is possible!!! for example, be honest... when I watch any international sporting event, I pull for the Chinese... granted I hate the commies and what Mao did but when it comes to sports, I'm all for my people meaning if the cubs don't win, the next best thing is to let those damn commies from the southside take the crown... anyway, I digress...

So as a die hard fan of the north siders from way back in the days of the Sarge, Ryno, The Penguin, Leon Bull Durham, Rick "Hi Im Joe Naimith" Sutcliffe, the original black unlcutch closer Lee Smith, Bobby the Deer Dernier and Andre the Hawk Dawson can I officially stop waiting for Prior and Wood to transfer their phenom status to Ace status.... or can we start calling them Van Poppel like busts!!

Here are some numbers... 70-54 3.67 era in 7 years... best year 14-11 with a 3.20... geez is this a phenom, an ace or does it sound a lot like Chan Ho Park or John Smiley... and we know they were never aces by any stretch of the imagination...

Or how about... Mark Prior? his numbers look a lot like Scott Erickson's... so I should put the fate of the damn billy goat curse on Scott Erickson? good lord... Im doomed for another 90 years.." GO COMMIES!!

Anyawy, please chime in on when does a phenom become a bust...how many years of mediocre performance? how many years of cactus league disappointment? how many trips to the 15 then 60 day DL retroactive the last game of last year? how many times must they play with my emotions as reports of he's throwing a simulated game off the mound tomorrow or he just pitched 5 scoreless innings in Des Moines Iowa against the Class A Sioux Falls Musgrats... Please tell me, so I can decide whether or not to invest another week's pay on the Alternate 5 Road Jersey for the Calf-zilla...

Bulls in the Pen

2006-05-20T10:53:00.000-04:00

Interleague play begins again today, and I can't say I'm a big fan. It brings fans to the stands, but it screws with teams. NL bench players get to DH, AL starters take batting practice, and AL lineups gets screwy as full time DH stars like Thome, Pronk, and Papi have no place to play and are likely to sit down one or two games. These three players are the best offensive players on their respective contending teams. Leaving them on the bench for PH duty just seems like a waste. You think the Philly fans really want to watch Matt Clement hit?

Here's a roundup of a few of Friday's games, with a focus on the relievers.

Yankees 6, Mets 7
Unit and Jeremi Gonzalez both get lit, and the pens are in full force by the 6th.

Scott Proctor's been pitching great for the Yankees, taking over the role for Sturtze the last couple of years in the middle innings. His stuff is decent with a mid/low 90's fastball, and mediocre off speed stuff. But he can throw all of his pitches for strikes. He may be prone to a few 4 hit innings here and there, but you won't see any 0.1 IP with 4 BBs in the boxscores anytime soon. That is, until Torre works him to death and he winds up with a partially torn rotator cuff.
Line: 2IP, 0H, 1BB, 1K, 25-16 (pitches-strikes).

Aaron Heilman has been doing an even better job for the Mets, with a 1.48 ERA and 23Ks in 24.1 IP and no HRs allowed. The guy pounds the strikes zone with his fastballs and changeups. He wants to start, but management has resisted because he's been so valuable in the bullpen since the middle of last year. Yesterday was the first time he's thrown more than two innings. Could the Mets be gearing him up for a spot in the rotation? Duaner Sanchez has usually been the guy in the 8th for Willie. Might be something there. On the other hand, he'd thrown only around 20 pitches in his first two innings, and 33 for the outing. I wouldn't be surprised if he were available this afternoon.
Line: 3IP, 0H, 0BB, 3K, 33-26.

Kyle Farnsworth takes over for Tom Gordon in the Yanks' pen. He's been doing almost exactly what's been expected of him. His evaluation is on hold until he gets through a tough series with the Sox. I don't think he has it in him. But he is the one Yankee pitcher who's willing to hit batters in the back, something they haven't had this decade.
Line: 1IP, 15-11.

Billy Wagner comes on in the 9th as there's no save situation possible. While his numbers look good, he's given up a few runs in tight situations and has blown 3 saves this year. But no worries, he's been as dominant as ever. By the end of the year, he's sure to have 40 saves and an ERA around 2. Something did strike me though. His slider used to be a hard slider going around 89-90; now, he's featuring it more as a changeup, throwing it to righties at 85 or so. He was absolutely unhittable tonight.

Here's his pitching sequence:
Jiambi:
fastball missed low and away, 1-0
fastball up, fouled back, 1-1
slider, fooled jiambi, 1-2
slider, down, swinging K, had no chance
Arod:
slider, high and away, 1-0
fastball, down and in, fouled grounder, 1-1
slider, outer half, 1-2
fastball, down the middle, swinging K
Stinnett:
slider, high and away, 1-0
slider, swinging strike, way out in front and the pitch acted like a straight change, 1-1
fastball, 96, missed the target outside, but hits the inside corner, 1-2
fastball, 97, outside corner, swinging K
Line: 1IP, 3K, 12-9

Mo shows up in the tie game. It ends when David Wright hits a long fly over Damon's head with two men on. Damon probably catches it if he wasn't playing so shallow. A better defensive CF catches that ball regardless.

One bit of good news for the Bombers, Posada seems to be okay. But the NY papers have got to really stop jinxing him.

Red Sox 5, Phillies 3
Ho-hum, Papi, Cap'n, and Lowell hit homers off Lieber, hand it over to Foulke, Timlin, and Papelbon, game over. Saw this game on the Phillies broadcast. Their radar gun showed Timlin throwing at least three fastballs at 95, 96, and 97, and striking out Howard on a 93 cutter. Papelbon managed to hit 98 on the gun. Um, yeah, and I am 6 foot 5. Drop the gun about 5 mph please. Which means that Cole Hamels is not breaking 90 with his fastballs. That seems about right.

Giants 0, A's 1
Haren and Lowry pitch great, setting up Street v. Bonds with 2 outs in the 9th. Yee haw!
fastball, runs low and away, 1-0
fastball, outside corner at the knees, unhittable pitch, 1-1
fastball, belt high down the middle, MISTAKE! vicious cut by Bonds, fouls it into Kendall's mask, he just missed it, 1-2
changeup/slider, down and in, swinging K
The pre-2005 Bonds smacks that 1-1 meatball into the bay. Even from Oakland he does. This year, a foul ball.

Braves 9, D'Backs 10
Weird game full of bad pitching. It's 8 all going into the ninth. Valverde gives up 1 in the top half, in comes Reitsma to close it out. He's already given up the tying run, and with men on 1st and 2nd, he faces Tony Clark pinch hitting.
change, down, swinging strike, 0-1
change, down, same location, same result, 0-2
At this point, Mark Grace, the color guy for Zona is telling Reitsma to throw that pitch again. What happens?
fastball, catcher sets up in, Reitsma misses off the plate, as he's supposed to do, but manages to hit Clark in the thigh, HBP
Bases get loaded, and eventually the D'Backs win.

Here's what I don't get. Why is he throwing that fastball? It makes no sense. Throw that changeup three more times in a row. There's no need to waste a pitch or back him off the plate or show him something else! He cant hit the change that you're throwing him. And it's your best pitch! Stupid shit like this makes me mad. Who called for that pitch, I don't know, but whoever you are, you're an idiot. You're probably the reason for this:

AL Batting leader, Casey Blake: .364, NL Batting leader, Brian McCann: .353

(And no, it wasn't McCann; he was pinch run for earlier. Pratt was catching at the time.)

Number 1's first post

2006-05-19T18:17:00.000-04:00

first of all, in my own defense, i have nothing against black people. i merely made an observation that was true because the sample size = 1. there has not been a black GM in baseball before ken williams (i dun think) so my statement was TRUE by default.

If you think about it, Ken williams made two of the worst trades that were not pennant-related (foulke-koch, podzilla-carlos lee) in recent memory. Kazmir for VZam was done because the mets were blindly chasing a playoff spot as most blockbuster trades are. Despite that I do have a lot of respect for ken williams for building ChiSox into a championship team, although he DID get very lucky to win it all in 2005.

second of all, we need to setup some kind of guestbook so i know who is reading this blog.

third of all, we also need to setup a page that keeps track of all our bets. we can probably extend this to people that wanna bet against us. for example, you think of a topic, we'll give you the odds, you place some kind of bet if you choose to accept. i think that would be fun.

suggestions anyone?

Another Blog is Born

2006-05-19T14:21:00.000-04:00

I tried to help it. But I cant help it now, not after seeing this story...

Danny Almonte, of LLWS fame, now 19, has gotten married... to a hairdresser... and she's 30!!!

Let's just move on...

Every blog has an FAQ. I'm just following the herd.

FAQ

1. Why a blog?

This blog was created because I'm tired of saving hundreds of AIM ramblings between me and my brother on baseball. They deserve a better place than within the folder of "Temporary Internet Files," only to be washed away everytime I (my computer, really) decide to clean the cache. No more. From now on, they'll be stored for eternity. For our children, and our children's children.

2. What can I expect to find?

-News and links, a la Buster Olney, although no one does it quite as well. His blog is the first thing I read in the morning. I reload the ESPN baseball page each day every five minutes until his post is up. It's worth the price of Insider and much more. And no, we will NOT be supplying passwords. Get your own, you cheapasses.

-Observations beyond the boxscore. Having mlb.tv is an absolute must. I browse probably half a dozen games a day, concentrating on games with good pitching matchups, those teams with my fantasy players and every Pujols AB. My brother does the same. Together, we probably cover half the league per night. And no, we will NOT be supplying passwords. Get your own, you cheapasses.

-General ramblings on baseball. You won't find anything about our daily lives here. No shout outs, no vacation journals. Only things related to baseball.

3. Will I be offended?

Quite possibly. We have some pretty fucked up conversations. But it's just the truth. Our version of the truth anyway.

Example 1 : July 29, 2005, Fenway Park.

Chasing a deep flyball off David Ortiz, Torii Hunter runs into the wall in the triangle and catches his spike on the padding. He writhes on the ground in pain clutching his right ankle.

Flashback of conversation..

#2: wow, papi drilled that shit.
#1: yeah.
#2: torii just hurt himself real bad. doesn't look good.
#1: he did?
#2: yeah, he caught his spike on the wall. check out the replay.
#1: hmm. looks like an OFYer to me.
#2: yup. i think he broke it.
#1: looks like he tore something.
#2: $1 that it's a broken ankle. even money. what you got?
#1: i'll go with torn calf.

End Snippet.

I love Spiderman. He's one of my favorite players. It's too bad he got hurt. I wished him a speedy recovery for '06. But it doesn't stop us from gambling on his injury.

Example 2: December, 2002

Billy Koch was traded by the A's to the White Sox for Keith Foulke AND cash.

Flashback of conversation..

#2: hahahahahaha ken williams just traded foulke for koch.
#1: hahahahahaha what an idiot.

Fastforward 3 minutes..

#2: hahahahahaha.
#1: but that wasn't the entire trade.
#2: huh?
#1: it was foulke AND cash for koch. AND CASH!!!!
#2: so he gave up real money and foulke for billy fucking koch? hahahahahaha.
#1: what an idiot. what do you expect from a black gm?
#2: seriously. they're just like black closers. unclutch.
#1: only a black gm would have made this trade.

End Snippet.

Ken Williams made one of the dumbest trades of the last decade. Ken Williams was a black GM. Hence, black GM's make dumb trades. Just an observation.

On the other hand, he has since turned the ChiSox into a machine, winning the 2005 WS in dominating fashion, and ripping off a chain of great trades and signings, including signing Iguchi, signing AJ, trading Loaiza for Contreras, trading Rowand for Thome, trading random garbage for Vaz, claiming Jenks off waivers from Anaheim, etc. The one bad deal was Lee of Podz, which cant really be criticized since they won the WS. I must give credit where credit is due. Ken Williams is easily in the top 5 of GMs. His record since the Koch disaster has been awesome.

4. Are you racist?

No, we love everyone. Our remarks may be interpreted as such, but they derive from OBSERVATIONS.

Here's an example of a racist remark:
All Black GMs = Bad GMs.

Here's an example of deduction:
Ken Williams made a bad deal + KW is the only black GM ---> Only a black GM would have made that trade.

Feel free to disagree with the "--->". That's why the comments section is there.

On the other hand, I hate morons:

Anyway, over the course of the next few weeks, you should see plenty of upgrades. Once I get the kinks worked out (might be awhile, since most of the template is plain gibberish to me as I'm borderline computer illiterate), everything should look pretty. Still haven't figured out how to upload pictures, graphics, and other cool blogger things like RSS feeds etc, but I will. In the meantime, send in those comments. Feel free to drop me a note if you feel like contributing in the future. And please leave a name. It's no fun to talk to anonymous people.

Enjoy!