Ian, you're a terrible communist

Ian, you have way too much young pitching wealth, and you're hoarding it through the winter. Marx would be very disappointed in you. Luckily, I am willing to help alleviate you from some of your sinful riches. The potential transfer of Jeff Francoeur from my team to yours for pitching could be just the solution for your increasing capitalist trends.

What a resource

I think every question we ever may have had regarding Seinfeld trivia may be solved....


http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/

Weekend

Cool little baseball note:

I went to Florida over the weekend for one of my cousins weddings. It was rather boring except for one cool occurance. One of my cousins and I were driving back from the wedding and we got to talking about her boyfriend. Turns out shes been dating one of the guys on the 40 man Tampa Bay roster (cathcher Shawn Riggens http://tampabay.devilrays.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060905&content_id=1647332&vkey=news_tb&fext=.jsp&c_id=tb) for three years and she was telling me and showing me pictures how shes been partying with delmon young and kasmir and all them. It was pretty sick cause on the way there she called delmon young up and talked to him. Aparantly he roomed with her boyfriend for a year or two.

Dittmar, your boy Kurt Warner has something he wants to tell you......

http://ballfield.blogspot.com/2006/10/save-us-jeff-suppan-and-mike-sweeney.html

Let me know if you are interested

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/washington/23fantasy.html?em&ex=1161835200&en=21ea4036d2743805&ei=5087%0A

Listen up, Tomaselli

I know you hate A-Rod and want him to be traded, but some sage advice from Prospectus' Joe Sheehan:

I would like to think that Rogers’ performance this October would serve as a reminder to people that the sample sizes we work with in the postseason aren’t meaningful, that a major-league baseball player can do just about anything in a span of a few outings or a handful of at-bats. You can't evaluate a player, and you certainly can’t extrapolate conclusions about his character, based on what he does in a playoff series or three. Baseball is much, much harder than that.

Some of you will write in to tell me that I’ve made this point, and I should stop harping on it. Objection noted, but until the message begins to take hold—and I see no evidence that it has—I will keep bringing it up.

And a little piece of info from FJM:

Even I'm tired of typing the words "small sample size." But it seems the likeliest explanation for how notorious playoff choker Kenny Rogers is now clutch playoff hero Kenny Rogers. Up until this year, Kenny had been horrendous in the playoffs -- for exactly 20 and 1/3 innings. So we all knew he couldn't get it done under the bright lights of the postseason. Until now, right after he puts together a crazy 23-inning scoreless streak. Here's something, though -- the aggregate of the two Kennys? A total playoff ERA of 4.15. Kenny's career regular season ERA? 4.19.

If Kenny can do it, why not Rodriguez? Although, Sheehan continues:

Of course, this could all be moot if it turns out that Rogers is cheating.

Now I turn to Mr. Walsh. Mr. Walsh, you have been Mr. Rules of late, stating that Barry Bonds "cheated" and is therefore a terrible ballplayer/human, ditto Jason Giambi. What about your boy, the ace of the Tigers' staff, the gambler?

I personally care about as much about Rogers cheating as I do about Bonds or Giambi. Yes, it should be illegal. Do I care when the rule is broken? Not really. (In the case of greasing the ball, I actually think it's pretty damn intriguing.)

Heeyyyyy Mets

This one's for you, Wright Stuff. What Stuff are you talking about, by the way??

A voice of reason

from Prospectus, via FJM:

"At just about any point along the way, one of the two most visible Yankees—Joe Torre or Derek Jeter—could have come forward and said what should be obvious: Alex Rodriguez is a great, great player, and in the worst season of his career he’s a star. Defining his season by his lowest points is doing him a disservice, and the constant focus on his play is an insult to the other members of the team. Whatever Rodriguez’s performance issues, such as they were, his overall contributions were valuable. Beyond that, he’s one of the game’s model citizens, with barely a controversy to his name in a time when so many others have been tainted.

That statement, completely true, would have done more to alleviate the pressure on Rodriguez than anything else. They didn’t do so, instead allowing petty nonsense like his desire to please people (heaven forfend) and his performance is varied subsets (in Boston, in the playoffs, against a small handful of pitchers, in 20 at-bats in July) to substitute for real information. They didn’t defend their teammate, and by allowing, even stoking, the situation, they absolved themselves and every other Yankee of blame for their fortunes. If they lost, it would be Rodriguez’s fault, no matter how the rest of them played."

Block

The following are available for players and/or picks.

Defending Champs (Brian Walsh):
Garrett Atkins
Miguel Tejada
Manny Ramirez
Lance Berkman
Bobby Abreu
Jered Weaver
B.J. Ryan

AIM: Walsher3
email: bdwalsh9@excite.com

Heeeeey Wright Stuff

January 30th Wings @ Islanders........ whaddya say?

Statistical Change Proposal

I mentioned this on the league board, but seeing as how we have a new member and all I thought I'd open the debate again.

The current statistical categories for the league are:

Hitting: Runs, RBI, HR, SB, AVG, OPS
Pitching: W, L, SV, K, ERA, WHIP

The change I am proposing is to remove both batting average and OPS, and replace them with On Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage, the two components of OPS.

To have both batting average and OPS makes no sense. On base percentage, simply put, is an improved version of batting average. Henry Chadwick would have used OBP if he had thought of it. For those who don't know, OBP is based on plate appearances rather than at bats, and counts walks and IBBs in its favor. The main purpose for a hitter is to get on base. Why should we include batting average, which punishes those who get on base via a walk?

The main criticisms of this method have been the following:
1) Since OBP counts IBBs, it rewards crappy eighth hitters in the NL who get walked for the pitcher.

This is a valid point, and hitters in the eight-hole generally do have a higher OBP than other... holes. My response to this is to ask what regular eight-hitter in the NL anyone would possibly want to draft. Is the slight increase in OBP worth the plunge in every other stat category?

2) People like Adam Dunn strike out an inordinate amount, but also draw a lot of walks, helping their OBP. Batting average levels the field for players like this.

This has been put to me by a few people, and I'm afraid I just don't get it. An out is an out. A hitter's objective is to not make outs. Who cares if it's a mighty whiff or a dribbler to short? Yes, there are situations where a ground out is more desirable, but there are also situations where a strikeout is more desirable.

The easier argument for this is that: strikeouts count against OBP too. ALL OBP DOES DIFFERENTLY IS COUNT WALKS IN PEOPLE'S FAVOR. So how the hell does it "not punish power hitters" enough for striking out? Seems to me it treats everyone the same. It acts exactly like batting average, but adds walks. This is my thesis. OBP is exactly the same, but it adds walks. What is the possible advantage of including batting average?

Seperating OBP and SLG from OPS is just another way of forcing owners to create a more nuanced team. Derek Jeter is a great OBP pickup, without great slugging. Vice versa for Johnny Damon, who for some reason is a leadoff hitter.

Batting average should be viewed as a specialty stat that evaluates how well hitters do when getting pitches to hit. But this is not even close to being all of hitting. All of hitting is not making outs, and OBP is a much better gauge of when your players don't make outs. Yes, this is shifting the focus away from drafting "good fantasy" players, but I suggest that the reason we all do this is that we wish we were real GMs anyway. Shouldn't we be striving to eliminate the differences between what makes a good GM and a good fantasy GM? Doesn't that make it more accurate and fun?

Ok, I'm totally rambling, but people should vote or something. Use comments for dialogue. Even if you're on my side and can articulate what I'm saying much better (Charlie).

Trade Update

Yanks36 Gets: David Ortiz

Charlie Gets: Mark Teixeira

Trade Update

All Dressed in Drag Gets: Derrek Lee, Johan Santana

Lovetank Gets: Aramis Ramirez, Hideki Matsui, Andruw Jones, Mark Buehrle

Two words....

I hope everyone was watching the Yankees rain delay, because you then witnessed this exchange between Karl Ravech and Eric Byrnes:

Ravech: "Eric, you offered a unique perspective this afternoon on Derek Jeter, do you think you could, do you think you could re-state what that was for those who may have missed it?"
Byrnes: "Man-love."
Ravech: "Man-love?"
Byrnes: "Man-love."
[At this point Vernon Wells is starting to look *really* weirded out, and Tim Kurkjian has nearly fallen under the desk laughing.]
Ravech: "Do you think you can define this concept of man-love?"
Byrnes: "He's my favorite player. He's my favorite athlete."

I go into more detail over at The Ol' Ballfield. Suffice it to say, that is hilarious.

Draft Order

Here is the 2007 draft order:

1)Mets
2)Mudcats
3)Wright Stuff
4)Charlie
5)Clippers
6)Lovetank
7)Yanks36
8)NYYDynasty
9)All Dressed in Drag
10)Cultural Proletariat
11)Bakers Dozen
12)Defending Champions

Keep in mind that draft picks can be traded. I will be emailing out an excel sheet with a complete draft list (rounds 1-15) that will show an update of each round.

Are we all even?

Why does lovetank have 9 keepers?

on a side note, who does everythink will make it to the world series? I want your expert baseball predictions, excluding segerson, because I dont need him repeating espn quotes to me.