Redux

So I was busily typing away when Firefox crashed on me, losing my progress. If this isn't any good, trust me, the original was amazing.

So, anyway, here's a roundup of some of the stories I've been following lately. A disclaimer is that most of these stories are either about the Tigers, or about players I happen to have on my team.

The stars of Detroit Tigers camp so far have been Curtis Granderson, Jeremy Bonderman, Gary Sheffield, and Kyle Sleeth. Apparently Grandy has been hitting rockets all over the yard, and seems poised to have a big year. Jeremy Bonderman has apparently been impressing with his newfound (again) changeup. I tell you, if he gets that changeup working, he's going to be Dominant. Don't sleep on Bondo this year. Sheffield has been impressing everyone with that waggling bat.

The most intriguing guy could possibly be Kyle Sleeth. Sleeth is a deep, deep, deep sleeper, not likely to contribute any sooner than next year, if ever. Sleeth was the Tigers' first pick in the 2003 draft. He went third overall behind Delmon Young and Rickie Weekes, and ahead of fellow first rounders like Nick Markakis and Chad Cordero. At draft time John Sickels summed him up like this:

" Likely the best raw arm in the college ranks, although not as polished as Tim Stauffer (see below). Sleeth will probably be the first college hurler drafted. He is big, throws hard, and has pitched well in college. Hard to go wrong with that package."


He made his debut in 2004 in single A Lakeland and performed pretty well (5-4 with a 3.31 ERA, 60 hits, 65/18 K/BB in 68 innings). After that he was promoted to Double A and struggled the rest of the year. 2005 he missed the first few months before finally having Tommy John surgery in June. He came back late last season to single A, but basically got his brains beaten in.

It appears Kyle is feeling better and starting to make big strides on his way back to prospect status. So, if he's getting his career back, how does he project? Going back to Baseball America again, here was the scouting report of Sleeth from 2003:

"Sleeth has far and away the highest ceiling among Tigers farmhands. He had one of the best fastballs available in the 2003 draft, both in terms of velocity and life. He usually pitches between 92-94 mph and touches 96. His fastball seems even firmer, however, because of its movement. It bores down and in on righthanders. It’s a heavy ball. Sleeth throws both a power curveball and a low-80s slider. The curveball is the better breaking pitch, as he throws it in the high 70s, and it features a lot of depth and bite. His slider improved last spring, though some scouts say it’s a bit slurvy. His changeup has the potential to be an average major league pitch. Sleeth has a strong, projectable frame and was durable at Wake Forest. He’s quiet and confident. When the Demon Deacons struggled behind him last spring, he remained poised. Though not demonstrative, Sleeth exudes competitiveness."

Well, all of a sudden the Tigers have a packed young rotation. Bonderman and Verlander figure to be rotation fixtures for the forseeable future. Andrew Miller is likely to join them, barring injury, next year. Nate Robertson and Mike Maroth are both very serviceable starters, and are in their prime years. Kenny Rogers is still pitching well, but is likely to move on in the next few year or two.

In the short term, I don't know how the Tigers are going to sort out their pitching depth. It's an enviable problem to have too much young pitching, but Jordan Tata, Andrew Miller, Jair Jurjjens, Eulogio de la Cruz, Virgil Vazquez, Wil Ledezma and maybe Kyle Sleeth are all pitching prospects that may be pushing for a rotation spot. Given his draft pedigree, if Sleeth can resurrect his career, and it's not uncommon for a pitcher to have Tommy John before making it to the majors, he'll likely get one of the first cracks at any open rotation spots.

To sum up, keep an eye of Kyle Sleeth, he was the #3 pick only a few years ago and appears to be making a strong comeback from Tommy John surgery. He may be a name to know in the future.

Essential Reading

So I'll admit I've been dogging it lately on the posting. Busy with the day job and etc, etc.

But don't think for a second my mind hasn't been on baseball, quite the opposite. I've been spending a lot of time working on a system to rank players for the purposes of a keeper league (perhaps I'll try to put that up at some point). I've also been busily putting a bunch of irons in the fire for our upcoming draft (still a few weeks out).

So, in lieu of writing anything constructive, I figure I'll distract you all with links to other good places to read about baseball (and other things sports related).

Baseball Prospectus is obviously the daddy. I must admit, part of me pines for the early days of our league when I was the only person in possession of BP's 2002 Prospectus. Others quickly caught on and now it's become a staple. These guys charge in order to be able to view all the content, but believe me, you can get your moneys worth. There's some great info on there.

Another favorite of mine, which for some inexplicable reason others in my league haven't gotten hip to is The Hardball Times. These guys are a bit like Prospectus, but have their own unique spin on things.

Now a few biased ones: The Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, and the official Detroit Tigers website.

I also am a big fan of Deadspin. It's not purely baseball, it covers all sports, but it is always good for a laugh.

Lastly, I also like to go over to check out the guys at Fire Joe Morgan. If you hear Tim McCarver "announcing" and grit your teeth, you'll appreciate the way these guys lampoon announcers.

Anyway, once I my head back in the game, the frequency of these posts should pick back up....

Alex Gordon?

This year's uber prospect is one Mr. Alex Gordon. Can you guess which of the Alex Gordon's shown above is our stud prospect?

If you're talking about a stud with the ladies, then the gent with the scarf is your man. If you're talking baseball, it's the man in the middle.

Mr Gordon is a stud hitting prospect among stud hitting prospects. He was drafted #2 overall (behind Justin Upton) in the 2005 draft. This following a successful college career that saw him named Baseball America's College Player of the Year in 2005.

Alex had a unique first year as a professional, in that he started the season at Double A Witchita, and ended up playing a full season there. But what a season. In 579 plate appearances, he had 69 extra base hits (39 doubles, 1 triple, 29 HR), stole 22 of 25 bases, drove in 101 guys, and scored 111 times, posting a sick 1.015 OPS. (on a .325/.427/.588 line)

It's looking like he's going to break camp with the Royals so what can we expect from him? Well down the road, we can expect MVP awards probably, he's that good, probably the best third baseman prospect since Brandon Inge, err, I mean, Scott Rolen. I think his ceiling is much higher than Rolen..

For 2007 Gordon is already going to be a top 10 third baseman. PECOTA's 50% percentile projection for Alex, which is by no means a stretch goal, is a .281 average, with 88 runs scored, 13 SB, 25 HR, and 85 RBI. That'll help you in your league. PECOTA's Stars vs Scrubs chart for Gordon shows over a 50% likelihood of him performing at superstar level over the next several year.

Bottom line, Gordon will be a stud this year, the only AL third baseman I would take over him is ARod. Factoring in a keeper league scenario, and I'd still probably take ARod, but it gets even closer.

Grab him quick and enjoy the ride.

Assessing the GMs, Part 2

Well now it's time for part 2 of the GM series. You can read Part 1 here if you missed it. I am attempting to draw parallels between actual American league General Managers and the 8 guys that make up my own keeper league. This may not be of a lot of interest to many of you, but I'm sure my league-mates will find it amusing, and over time, I'm sure you'll all get a good feel for each of them. It'll be like a fantasy baseball soap opera, and the first thing we need to do is introduce the characters, starting with:

Matthew Adams - That would be me. As I've mentioned, I won our league last year. Here's a picture of our Stanley Cup-like trophy.

So what, GM do I most correlate to? Kenny Williams of the Chicago White Sox. Much like Kenny, I had my struggles to start out, missing the playoffs the first 4 seasons of the league before winning it last year. Also like Kenny, I always have a few irons in the fire, and typically they come as a surprise. Looking back I've been in on 15 of 25 trades that have gone down in our league (which is shocking when I actually tally it up). Also like Kenny Williams, when I finally built a winner, it was around dominant pitching (last years starters for me were Johan & Ervin Santana, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, Huston Street, and Bobby Jenks). My offenses are decent but never overpowering (although Kenny has built a powerhouse offense recently, something I hope to duplicate).

Dan Opp - Dan Opp has been the most successful owner in our league. He's taken home the trophy 2 of the 5 years, and lost in the finals to me last year. Dan's closest AL comparable is Mark Shapiro of the Cleveland Indians. Both have teams are built about a powerful offense, Dan Opp somehow he has managed to assemble Travis Hafner, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz on the same team. Where both guys struggles in in the pitching dept. Dan has a few good pitchers, CC Sabathia, Roy Halladay and Bartolo Colon (when healthy), but has a hard time filling in the back half of the rotation and the bullpen.

Chuck Prezzano - Chuck hasn't had any success yet in the league, but its not for lack of effort. Chuck has consciously gone into rebuilding, and he's got the beginnings of a dominant young team (Delmon Young, Francisco Liriano, Mark Texeira, Rich Harden, Justin Verlander, Vernon Wells, Josh Beckett) with a bunch of high draft picks. The GM Chuck is most like is Dave Dombrowski of the Detroit Tigers. Chuck is about one year behind Dombrowski's progress. Both spent a long time down, but are building up around young power pitching. Dombrowski's team come out of nowhere last year, but it was a few years in the building. Likewise, Chuck's been quietly stockpiling young pitching (and that's setting aside his never ending quest to pry Felix Hernandez away from Harold). Both guys are gradually building good bullpens, and their offenses are well balanced.

Greg Palmer - Greg's been competitive the past few years, finishing fourth in last years league (losing the consolation game), and losing in the finals the year before. The past few years Greg has held onto a lot of guys, so he's pretty happy with the roster he has. The GM he is most similar to is JP Ricciardi of the Toronto Blue Jays. Both guys have struggled to get the pitching staff lined up. Greg's early pitching staffs were anchored by Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera. He could never seem to get the right parts around them to have a fully successful pitching staff. Pedro is obviously gone, but Mariano is still there. Like JP, Greg has sometimes appeared to overpay for pitching (making a big trade last season to get Joe Crede and Randy Johnson, trading up last year to grab Javier Vazquez) but it hasn't translated yet into a strong pitching staff (although his staff is pretty good). On offense both guys have a few blue chippers, but have a tendency to run out a few stiffs at a couple positions (Greg stuck with Bobby Crosby for an agonizingly long time before finally cutting him lose).

Nick Willnow - Nick was a force in the early seasons of the league. he never won the title, but had a good team. The last few years he's succumbed to rebuilding efforts, although his rebuilding efforts haven't always ended well (Who can forget his fabled 2005 draft, where he had 4 of the top 13 picks, [2, 4, 12, 13] and came away with Randy Johnson, Matt Clement, Aaron Rowand, and Carl Pavano). For all this, sorry Nick but you most resemble Mike Flanagan of the Orioles. Rebuilding efforts have focused on the wrong guys (Clement, Pavano, Sosa, Javy Lopez). Neither guys can build a decent offense around a few stud building blocks (ARod, in Nick's case). Also, both have struggled to put together a good pitching staff, as Nick heads into this season with Papelbon, Garland, Jake Westbrook, Gil Meche, and Carl Pavano as his kept starters, with nary a closer.

Brad DeMay - Brad has had his share of success in our league as well. He won the whole thing in 2004, and finished third this past season. Besides the one year he decided to tear it all down and rebuild (and only kept 3), Brad typically hangs onto a lot of guys, never keeping less than 12. He's got a nice team, with decent balance. Brad's Achille's heel is his bullpen (which for fantasy purposes means closer.). Brad's closers typically implode on him as soon as he gets them (Billy Koch, Jorge Julio, Danny Baez, even Todd Jones is no safe bet going forward). For this reason, Brad is most like Theo Epstein of the Boston Red Sox. Also much like the Red Sox, Brad goes into the season with the makings of a good offense (Swisher, Vlad, Dye, Matsui, Jeter, Eric Chavez) and a decent rotation, although one with some question marks (Schilling, AJ Burnett, Kelvim Escobar). Brad's infield is also normally in flux, as he has Jeter and Eric Chavez, and a rotating cast of characters at the other 3 spots each year.

Dan Messier - Dan's a fun guy. Not a fungi, a fun guy. He's also the co-commish of this league and the creator of our illustrious trophy. Here's a picture of this year's trophy hand over.

I'm the grinning fat guy in the red shirt, Dan's the fella give me a hearty handshake. Anyway, Dan won the league in its first season. He was also defeated in the finals in 2004, in the consolation game in 2005, and in the first round of the playoffs in 2006, obviously a disturbing trend if you're Dan. Dan's closest comparable is Terry Ryan of the Minnesota Twins. Both are consistently competitive, but haven't gotten over the hump in a while. Both build their teams about young home grown talent (Dan's been waiting for BJ Upton and Zack Greinke to blossom for about 3 years now). Both guys have good bullpens, and good front ends of the starting rotation. The back end of each guy's starting staff can be a problem (Dan's staff drops off quickly: Scott Kazmir, Mike Mussina, Erik Bedard, Mark Buehrle). Both guys have more stability on their team than most. For Dan, he built his nucleus during the 2005 draft, and still has 7 of the 8 guys he kept after that season (with the 8th, Casey Kotchman, being a guy Dan will no doubt draft towards the end of this draft).

Harold Greist - Last, but not least, there's Harold Greist. Well, maybe I could say last and least, but that wouldn't be nice. Harold was the best man at my wedding, but so far hasn't been the best man in this league. Rold has struggled pretty much every year, only making the playoffs once. Harold is most like Bill Stoneman of the Anaheim Angels (or whatever they're called). Both of these two guys have dynamite bullpens. (Rold 's got Joe Nathan and K-Rod, and for a while also had Francisco Cordero). Both guys have the beginnings of good pitching staffs (King Felix, Dan Haren, John Lackey, Barry Zito before he went NL). Much like Stoneman, Harold has a tendency to have one of two stiffs in his lineup every year (he finally gave Garret Anderson the boot), and like Stoneman, has a hard time letting older guys go (Anderson again, Jorge Posada, although to be fair, Posada's still a decent player).

That's it, a round up of all the guys in my keeper league, and how they stack up to the real thing.

The league is starting to crank up, so the drama will be in full swing soon...

My version of Madden day

Don't get me wrong, I love the Madden games as much as the next guy. Its just that in my mid 20's, I don't typically make it a habit of lining up to purchase the new Madden game the day it comes out. A lot of this may be a by-product of my team inevitably sucking on the game. There WAS one year in college, when I did buy Madden the day it came out.

These days, I have a substitute for Madden day, Yahoo day. Sorry, I guess that should technically be Yahoo(exclamation point) day. I apologize to Yahoo for dropping the silent exclamation point at the end, but my host for this here writeup does not allow the exclamation character (extremely odd).

Anyway, today's the day when Yahoo puts its free fantasy baseball up for the masses to join. Yahoo is the site we have used to host our league since its inception, and we are all very comfortable with the interface. Someday we may upgrade to a premium league, but for now Yahoo, keep up the good work.

Our league has some unique rules, nothing off the wall, but a bit different than a standard keeper league. For one thing, you can keep up to 15 players, and for another, owners are rewarded compensation picks for the loss of players to the other league. The combination of compensation picks (awarded in the round the player was drafted) and a varying number of players kept from owner to owner, makes for some interesting draft orders. You'll typically see the same few guys drafting at the top of the draft repeatedly. This is a fun feature (in my opinion) because it gives a keeper owner a better ability to rebuild.

Anyway, today is Yahoo day, the fantasy equivalent of pitchers and catchers reporting.

A Grand Sophomore Season?

Doesn't that just warm your heart? Alas, I won't be seeing that sign in person this year, but just you wait, I'll be there next year.

Anyway, let's continue our haphazard look at the upcoming year to talk about one of my personal favorites, Curtis Granderson.


Grandy had a pretty good rookie season, all things considered. Hitting leadoff on a 95 win, World Series team, and playing centerfield in Comerica National Park is a lot to ask of a rookie. Granderson definitely was guilty at times of making it easy on the pitcher, as is easily evidenced by his 174 strikeouts.

While I would love for him to have only struck out 74 times, rather than 174, that in and of itself is not the only stat one should look at when evaluating Grandy. He'll be turning 26 in March, so while he's not young, there is still some room and time for him to improve. A quick look at his PECOTA card over at baseball prospectus shows him with a nearly 60% chance of performing at star level in the next few years. It's 5 year forecast shows him in the low 20's in VORP for the next several years. All the fun sabermetric numbers aside, what's he likely to do in the next few seasons?

Well, on the unscientific side of things, I can recall one of the Tigers' coaches saying something to the effect that Curtis Granderson will get every bit out of the talent he has. He has been praised up and down the Tigers organization for his work ethic and dedication, which is certainly not a bad thing to keep in mind when trying to project his future performance. None of that has any tangible effect when he's in the batters box, but we can rest assured that he'll be as prepared as possible for that confrontation.

Last year Curtis ended up with a line of .260/.335/.438. He hit 19 HRs, stole 8 bases, had 59 extra base hits (31 doubles, 9 triples, 19 dingers) and drove in 68.

There are some questions about whether Curtis will stay at the top of the batting order. While batting order isn't terribly important, staying at the top of the lineup may improve his potential to pick up a few steals. He stole 22 bases in Toledo in 2005, so he's not hopeless on the basepath, and double digit steals is probably likely for the upcoming season. The Tigers sent him 13 times last season, and he was only successful 8 of those times. 5 of those stolen base attempts happened in the seasons first month, and he was 3/5. After that, the Tigers were much more cautious about sending Curtis, and his last 3 steal attempts came on July 7, August 2nd, and August 17th. Basically, they stopped sending him.

One of the most vexing thing about Curtis last year was that he seemed to swing through a lot of pitches. His strikeouts were not necessarily a by-product of poor pitch recognition (he did walk 66 times, which isn't terrible) as much as they were an inability to make contact with good pitches he chose to swing at. I'm not sure what that portends for the future.

PECOTA's diagnostics give Grandy a 20% breakout rate, and a 47% improve rate, so better days are likely ahead. It forecasts a drop in strikeouts to the 130 range, which will subsequently likely result an an increase in OBP. Personally, I think with Granderson's work ethic, and room to grow, PECOTA's 75th percentile projection for Curtis sounds about right:

.283 average, 91 runs, 24 HR, 76 RBI, 11 steals.

However, I think he's likely to beat the steals projection easily, as I expect the small ball inclined Jim Leyland to make base stealing a point of emphasis with one of his quicker players. The Tigers basically gave up on sending Curtis last season due to a poor success rate, and I think they'll try to fix that this spring. I think he'll end up with 20 steals when all is said and done. If he achieves 20/20 status, he'll be worthy of having on your team, even in a mixed league format.

Assessing the GMs, Part 1

So I had a fun idea to try to draw a parallel between the real AL and the fantasy AL. At least, my version of the fantasy AL. So I'm going to try to characterize each of the AL general managers in this blog, and then in Part 2, I'll say which manager most resembles which GM. Below is a listing of each AL GM. Note that this is a characterization of their tenure. I try not to cast judgement on whether they are a good GM or not. I am merely trying to boil down their tenure as GM to a few salient points.

AL East:

Brian Cashman - I've alway thought he was underrated. People assume that with a big payroll, anyone could do the job. But I find Cash to be very clever. He is known to decisively fill holes when he sees them (see the Abreu trade), and always seems to have a stacked offense. He doesn't fare quite as well with the pitching staff, occasionally chasing the bad/old free agent, and seems to have a hard time building a decent bullpen (beyond Mo at least).

Theo Epstein - Another guy with a big budget. Theo is prone to falling in love with guys, and once that happens, he eventually gets them (Coco Crisp, JD Drew, Daisuke Matsuzaka), not sure if this is a plus or a minus. He's also a guy who seems willing to go the extra mile. Theo sees a high turnover in his offense, especially infield, but generally is able to field a strong offensive club. Likewise, his bullpens are seemingly always in a state of flux, and he can't seem to nail down a closer for long. The starting rotation could be good, but has its questions (Schilling & Wakefield's age, Daisuke's transition to the US, Papelbon's shoulder woes, Beckett's continued transtition from the NL.)

Andrew Friedman - He's been on the job a fairly short time, so it's harder to get a read on him. Friedman, like his predecessor, seems to have a hard time swinging a trade for an obvious need. He has a stacked, up and coming young offense, but can't seem to compile anything like a quality pitching staff, either in the rotation or bullpen. He's known to hoard young players, even when he has a surplus at a position.

Mike Flanagan - It's hard to know how much of the Os struggles are his fault. His tenure has been characterized by overpaying older players. Some (Tejada) have lived up to their pay, others (Sosa) have not. He is hamstrung by bad ownership so I don't like to dump on him. Also, their incoming young players have had an up and down time of it (Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, Daniel Cabrera, Erik Bedard), but there's some hope here for improvement.

JP Ricciardi - JP has appeared to overpay for pitching on occasion, but still can't seem to put a good staff together. Signing Burnett and Ryan was looked at as a big expenditure, but those moves have worked out. However, he can't seem to build the back half of a rotation, or a quality pen. On the offensive side, he has some blue chippers, however, the Jays have shown a propensity for trotting out truly awful offensive players at several positions each year (I'm looking at you Russ Adams).

AL Central

Dave Dombrowski - Before last season a Detroit columnist (Rob Parker) made the asinine assessment that Dumbo was the worst GM in Detroit Rock City. Not even close, Matt Millen runs laps around him in the suck ass department. All this is to say he's a good GM. He's turned around a moribund franchise (for which I will forever love him). His tenure has been characterized by building a team around young power ams. His tenure has also seen big money signings of older/injured players (Pudge Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez, Kenny Rogers, Troy Percival). His offenses are generally solid but unspectacular, with no true superstar. The man also knows how to build a bullpen.

Kenny Williams - Kenny has really improved since he got the job. He used to be a sub-par GM, but now he's one of the better ones. Kenny's a guy who always seems to have a few irons in the fire. You can pretty much trust in Kenny to make one big trade every year, normally one that takes everyone by surprise. He's not one to sit on his laurels and is aggressive about improving his team. The team he's built is built around a strong, deep pitching staff, complimented by a balanced offense.

Dayton Moore - He's the new guy on the block so it's a bit hard to get a read on him. I like what he's done so far. He's unwilling to accept the status quo and has thrown caution to the winds that the Royals are going to aggressively try to improve. Most of his early tenure has involved trading older guys for young power arms and offensive players who haven't been given a real shot to contribute (Shealy). With 3 premier prospects on the way, it'll be interesting to see how the Royals look in a few years.

Mark Shapiro - He took over the Indians at the end of their dominant late 90's run. He was given the unenviable task of tearing it all down and rebuilding right and boy does it seem like he did a good job of it. His team is characterized by a powerful young lineup (albeit one that sometimes underachieves), and a decent rotation. Rotation depth still is a problem for the Tribe, as is their bullpen, which was just awful last year.

Terry Ryan - One of the best in the business, and maybe the most underrated. Terry drafts very well, and his teams are built around young homegrown talent. Always has one of the best bullpens around. His offenses are generally decent, but don't really have any big boppers. The starting rotation is headed by the best pitcher in baseball (Santana), and for a time last year, a worthy adversary to that title (Liriano). Beyond that, the rotation is questionable.

AL West

Bill Bavasi - Let's get this out there right away. I think Bill is the worst GM in baseball. But I'm not looking to assassinate his character, but to sum up his regime. Bavasi isn't afraid to make a splash, or to pay out big money free agent contracts. His problem is that he seems to pursue the wrong guys, and his free agent signings so far have been mediocre at best (Beltre, Sexson, Washburn). He can't seem to figure out how to augment the beginnings of a decent offense (Ichiro, Jose Lopez, Beltre, Sexson, Johjima) and has made some truly awful moves (acquiring Jose Vidro, he of the .395 slugging percentage last year, to be your DH is cringe-worthy). Bavasi also can't seem to put together a good rotation, and falls on shaky guys instead (Jeff Weaver, Horacio Ramirez).

Billy Beane - Everybody knows he "wrote" Moneyball about how much of a genius he was, and how all hitters should try to take walks. Joe Morgan's antiquated misunderstandings aside, Beane is regarded, rightfully, as one of the best. Beane's teams have been characterized by always seeming to be in contention, despite fairly consistent roster turnover through the years. The A's always have a good bullpen, and their hallmark is young, talented, starting rotations. The "Big Three" (Hudson, Mulder, Zito) may all be gone now, but the A's still have young studs in their starting rotation (Harden, Haren, Joe Kennedy - kidding about Joe!). On the offensive side, the A's, at least recently, don't blow you away, but they always have enough there to get the job done. And they like to take walks. And hit home runs. And they hate stealing bases. And they hate drafting high school players. Sorry, just venting on some of the misconceptions of Moneyball.

Bill Stoneman - Bill Stoneman likes the players that he drafts. Stoneman's regime has been a big success, the Angels are consistent contenders. However, Bill Stoneman can be accused of hoarding his prospects too long. For that matter, he can be accused of hoarding his veterans too long, well after they should've pushed them out the door (thank god for their sake Darin Erstad is finally off the team). Stoneman's a guy who can put together a bullpen, probably better than anyone else. He seems to turn up a guy or two each year and get great success out of them (remember herky jerky Ben Weber?). Similarly, he always seems to have a good starting staff. Angels offense are generally good, with at least one or two millstones each year (this year's stiff is Garret Anderson).

Jon Daniels - Daniels hasn't been on the job all that long either, so an opinion is still being formed. Daniels has a nice young offensive nucleus to build around (Teixeira, Young, the ghost of Hank Blalock's potential) but man, that rotation always needs help. The Rangers just cannot seem to figure out how to trot a decent pitching staff out there. Good offense, bad pitching, is the story of this team.

Alright, that's a rundown of the GMs, soon I'll be drawing parallels between real world GMs, and fantasy GMs. This is guaranteed to draw the ire of at least one of my fellow managers, so that should be fun.

Do I need to drew you a picture?

So as Spring Training draws ever nearer, I figure I'll start talking about some of the guys I have been giving serious consideration to. The first guy I'll talk about is JD Drew. For a lot of people, he might as well add another letter to his abbreviated "first name." Just call me JDL Drew. People see him as the white, over hyped cousin of RonDL White.

First off, I think if JD hadn't been such a hyped prospect, and hadn't had the nasty holdout with Philly, I don't think he'd have the injury prone reputation. I think the fact that he was a high visibility guy from day 1, magnified everything he did. Look at it this way: two kids go to a tough college (yes, I am drawing parallels from my past here). Both struggle. One was valedictorian (I wasn't) in high school and never really had to work hard, one was in the top quarter of their class, but had to work hard. Most people would find the struggles of the valedictorian more surprising, because they excelled so easily in high school. JD Drew is that valedictorian.

He dominated college fairly easily, coasting on physical talent. Didn't have to work hard at conditioning or really apply himself. I think adjusting to playing 140+ games was tough for him, he couldn't get by on raw talent. He was ill prepared conditioning-wise as well as mentally, because he'd been told he was great for so long.

Short story long, he didn't work hard, and he had a rough go of it to start his career. Happens to a lot of guys, but JD was higher visibility. His struggles were more public, what with batteries being thrown and all, and he got branded with underachiever and overrated labels.

All that said, he's older now. From what I've read, he's applied himself to staying healthy and productive. If you look at his last few seasons he's played 145, 72, and 146 games. The year he played 72 games he got hit on the wrist with a pitch. Could happen to anyone.

The bottom line is that his career line is a /.286/.393/.512. A career 905 OPS is nothing to sneeze at. His 162 game average (yes I know he'll never play 162) is 102 runs, 27 HR, 86 RBI, 12 steals, with gold glove caliber defense. I expect him to stay healthy this year and play 145 games, and I think he'll probably put up numbers close to his 162 game average, due to the fact he's entering his prime, and hitting in a strong lineup. An OF like that is probably a top 12 AL outfielder....

Thrown a shuuto

So I was in one of my interminable meetings today and the phrase "you threw me a curveball" was used. That got me thinking, that isn't necessarily the most accurate expression.

Obviously, saying someone threw you a curveball means they gave you something different than you were expecting. While it's true that there have been many a major league who have had a hard time hitting Old Uncle Charlie, is that really the best pitch to use?

My understanding (bearing in mind my baseball career ended ignominiously with 2 broken noses and a Mendoza level batting average in little league) is that the curveball isn't necessarily a pitch that looks like a fastball, but rather is difficult to hit because of its extreme movement (like Barry Zito's 12 to 6 er).


Seems to me like a better expression would be "You threw me a changeup," seeing as that's a pitch that relies on fooling the batter and defying their expectation. A slider, or even a shuuto would seem like other good choices. A slider especially, can fool the hitter into thinking a fastball is coming, until it breaks away from the hitter I've heard the phrase "backdoor slider" used in conversation before, but it's probably not something you want to be trotting out in the workplace.

So the next time someone tells you that you threw them a curveball, make sure you tell them to shuuto their mouth.

One day closer

So I was cruising around the Inet last night and I came across this picture:


Man that makes me smile. No, that pasty white fellow is not Casper the friendly ghost, it's Jeremy Bonderman. They seem to have gotten right down to business, as here you can see them practicing how to walk off a killer throwing error.

SABR Toothed Tiger

Yup, that's pretty much the best I've got. I mean, I like to think I'm pretty funny, but I'm more of an off the cuff funny than a premeditated funny. Anyway, it's worth checking back just to see some more good one liners like that.

I've been pondering what direction to take this thing, but I'm just gonna start heading off in any direction and see where I end up. So in no particular order:

I liked the Gil Meche signing by the Royals this offseason. Being a Tigers fan (see, the title IS funny) I can sympathize with being so deeply buried in terrible-ocrity (like mediocrity, but more terrible) that you can't bribe people to sign at any price. I can remember Miggy Tejada telling the Tigers he would return their calls if they started their bidding at something like 126 mill. Of course he ended up signing for about 90, so that gives you an idea how much extra he wanted. Anyway, if Jason Marquis can get 8 mill a year, I don't think Gil Meche making 11 mill to eventually be a decnt #3 is the end of the world. Too much money for him? Yes, but it's symbolic of the Royals finally deciding to try to compete.

I think Daisuke is in for a big year. And that's all I've got to say about that.

I blame the Red Sox for diminishing my hatred of the Yankees. Growing up in Red Sox country, I tend to pull for them when the Tigers aren't involved (which has been from April 15th on every year until last year). Well I can't be hating on the Yanks for being bad for the game when the Sox are spending just as much.

My stat of the moment is BABIP. For those who aren't savvy on the SABR tip, that stands for something like Batting Average on Balls In Play. I've been turning it over in my mind for a few days, but I'll eventually make a full blown posting about this.

I think the Tigers are winning the World Series this year.

My wife is watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network right now and they are making a rat shaped cake for two woman's commitment ceremony. That is supremely weird on so many levels.



You know when the hat stretchers head south to Florida, baseball is right around the corner... Until next time...

Will I take Jose Guillen?

So I was just perusing Yahoo's preview of the AL outfielders and a name caught my eye. Yes, it's one of my original binkies, Jose Guillen. I have loved this man irrationally since his big half season with the Cincy Reds in 2003. When he came over to the AL in 2004 I was all over him, and he really came through with a big season, at least until he threw a helmet at his manager and got suspended towards the end of the year. Since then he's had one good year and one bad (injured) year. Now my boy is back in the American League, and I can snap him up again.

What is it with fantasy sports binkies? I equate them to your first crush, or any crush for that matter. Why do you have crush on someone? It could be all sorts of silly reasons (they have good hair, they have good looks, or they're easy), but you just want them. Well I just love Jose Guillen. I look at him and say, "He's ONLY 31, he's still in his prime." and "He was hurt last year, and played in the Grand Canyon of stadiums."

I guess I'm like a victim of spousal abuse. Things have turned out badly more times than not, but I just can't see it, and keep giving them another chance. All I know is that I need to trade one of my outfielders to make room for a Mr. Jose Guillen...

What's it all about?

So if you're reading this (all three of you), you're probably wondering what this blog is all about. Well, this blog is about me becoming the last person in the US to have a blog (or at least it seems like it). Truth be told, I'm sure a bunch of people I work with don't have blogs, but a lot of times Maine seems more like Canada (more hicks, more trees, more snow, more hicks, etc.).

Anyway, I've recently become fascinated with several sports themed websites and blogs, and I have decided to start my own. I won't list them right now, they'll trickle out over time. Basically, baseball has been a growing sickness on my mind. I guess that baseball was my first sports love, the only sports I ever really played as a kid (you can't call my endeavors on the basketball court "playing"). As I grew, baseball dropped down the priority list.

The biggest reason baseball took a backseat was my Darwinist approach to sports fandom. Don't get me wrong, I'm no bandwagon jumper, per se. I grew up in Eastern Connecticut (pre-casinos). This is traditionally Boston sports territory, but is far enough removed that you can fool yourself if you try. Also, in those days we had the Whale (Hartford Whalers), so it was an interesting sports dynamic. Anyway, I had no push to be a fan of one team or the other. I started watching baseball around the time I started playing little league. Cecil Fielder hit a bunch of HRs for the Detroit Tigers, and voila, I became a Tigers fan. Little did I know how much suffering this childhood attachment to a fat man hitting moon shots would cause. Anyway, I've been a Tigers fan since the late 80's. Back in those days they were in the AL East and were on TV quite a bit in CT, playing the Yanks and the Sawx.

The point of this digression is that baseball was my first love. Continued losing by the Tigers, as well as success by some of my other sports teams (Washington Redskins, New Jersey Devils) pushed baseball down the list. However, when I got to college, baseball started to stage a comeback.

My full blown baseball obsession began around 2000. By this time I was in college enjoying the fraternity life (better and different than you think it was). In that fraternity I made friends with a gang of guys you'll no doubt be hearing a lot about as time goes by. Every year we did all the fantasy sports, starting my freshman year, 1998, the dawn of fantasy sports (for me). I won the fantasy (roto) baseball league going away (nobody even bothered to check it the last month, I was so dominant) and that was it. My senior year, I got the notion of keeper league into my head, and founded a keeper league along with another 7 guys. My co-conspirators in founding the league were Chuck and Dan.

Anyway, this backstory is overblown, uninteresting, and will dribble out over time, the point is that for the past 5 years we've been running a very competitive fantasy baseball keeper league. The league is American League only, hence the blog name. I currently am the defending champ of this league (although, in the interest of full disclosure, I missed the playoff my first 4 years) and have a full blown obsession with this league.

This blog is an extension of that obsession. This keeper league never strays far from my sporting thoughts, and I wanted to launch a blog to chronicle the experience of obsessing over one half of a league of grown men attempting to hit a ball. What will the blog become? I don't know. For now, it will contain musing about baseball (as well as other sports occasionally), and specifically American League keeper league concerns. It is my hope that this will be an interesting blog, even for those who have no interest in baseball. I hope it's a glimpse into a little world, one where everyone cares far too much about the outcome of a fantasy game.

Coming soon... a picture of me holding the pimping league trophy!!!

Starting Off Somewhere....

... and so it begins.