MLBeat

Fantasy baseball's greatest weakness thus far is its ephemeral nature. More so than the real games themselves, fantasy baseball's results are instantly forgotten and even poorly archived online to boot. Some may remember who won and lost, but nobody remembers the pivotal trades, the astute waiver-wire pickups, the team that won it all back in '99 solely on stolen bases and middle relievers.

I have a vague memory of trading Cliff Floyd for Eric Milton at midseason in a league full of strangers several years ago. Everyone mocked and jeered my newbie move as Floyd had been an MVP thus far and Milton was completely unproven at the time, but sure enough the former injured himself and the latter helped me come from behind to tie the first-place team on the season's final day. But other than that, I can't recall a single other memorable trade I've made over the years, which is sad considering the time and thought I poured into them (not to mention the ones that didn't even get accepted).

Okay, last May I did trade Jonny Gomes for Felix Hernandez and Justin Morneau in a keeper league. Better yet, the numbers at the time were such that nobody even questioned the deal. That one was, and continues to be, memorable....

I harbor few illusions that a complete stranger's fantasy baseball travails can be of any interest but himself, but because MLBeat serves at least in part as a repository of hidden details I may want to be able to recall someday, here's a message I posted to my league's board last night, an hour after the trade deadline had passed. Yahoo--for all its perks--doesn't keep a record of these, so if I don't post it here, it could be lost forever.

Backstory: this is the first year of It's a League Game Smokey, at least in its current 16-team five-keeper format. It's head-to-head, 6x6 (OPS and losses), comes with a pittance of a $30 buy-in that gets pooled to the top three finishers, and it's joyously combative, combining proud and grizzled veterans with eager first-timers and everywhere in between. I'm the league's commissioner and loving caretaker, and if I may fan my feathers ever so slightly, it's far and away the best fantasy league experience I've ever enjoyed.

One note that though it doesn't fit, I cannot omit: despite the overall high level of activity there has been one wild aberration: Funky Cold Madina sits in third place, virtually assured of a place in the coveted playoffs here in the final week of the regular season, despite:
1) not knowing anything about baseball,
2) managing an autodrafted team,
3) making a total of two roster moves, both to drop injured or worthless players, and
4) only logging in once since June.

And that login was solely to post a trash-talking message to the dozen deeply embarrassed managers behind him in the standings. That this was the only dead team in the league puts the whole enterprise into a certain absurd perspective, no?



So that’s a wrap on all the trading activity for the ‘07 season. Well done, noble participants: twenty trades and not a single league-ruiner. And at least in my case, plenty of heated negotiation right up to the deadline, although in the end Akira was unable to consummate his lust for Brandon Webb.

League sluts were Mofos on a Diamond and DurrrtySouth Mudcats with 6 trades apiece.
League prudes were Agents of Fortune, Train Wreck, Smiley Mets Fan and (of course) funky cold madina with 0 trades each. (Which is fine, but how about at least *replying* to my offers, eh guys?)

Just in case folks were hoping for an authoritative final word on the year’s deals...well, don’t mind if I do:

4/17 -- the long shot trades Todd Jones to Lickin’ Cactus for Rich Harden
Jones hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been the closer all year. Harden barely even took the field.
Winner: Lickin’ Cactus

4/28 -- Mofos on a Diamond trades Adam Dunn, Jason Frasor to Otis Nixon Overdrive for Lance Berkman, Mike MacDougal
Neither Frasor nor MacDougal amounted to much of anything, so it’s Dunn vs. Berkman, and Dunn has simply had a better year. Next year, who knows.
Winner: Otis Nixon Overdrive

4/28 -- the long shot trades Phil Hughes to Mofos on a Diamond for Al Reyes
Hughes hurt himself immediately following this but is now back and looks to help Akira out down the stretch. Reyes only has ten saves since this trade and two in the last two months.
Winner: Mofos on a Diamond

5/6 -- El Kabong trades Corey Patterson, Jake Peavy to The Pimply Backs for Garrett Atkins, Mark Teahen
This trade “coincided” with Jay starting to run away with the regular season. Peavy’s been better than the other three players put together, although Atkins has finally come around. Patterson has too, but Jay gets no credit for that since he’s doing it for Satter instead.
Winner: The Pimply Backs

5/10 -- Chrum trades Frank Thomas to The Pimply Backs for Andy Pettitte
Thomas has hit 16 of his 21 HR since the trade, and Pettitte has gone 9-5.
Winner: Push

5/17 -- DurrtySouth Mudcats trades Paul Konerko, Aaron Harang to Teen Girl Squad for Adrian Gonzalez
Konerko has hit 21 of his 26 HR since the trade, while Gonzalez has only hit 13 of his 23 (thanks to four in the past week). And then there’s the Harang part: 8-2, 3.32 ERA, 113 K in 120 IP since that date. Yeah, I’d probably be in 10th-12th place if not for this trade.
Winner: Teen Girl Squad

5/31 -- the long shot trades Yovanni Gallardo to Mofos on a Diamond for Melvin Mora
Mora has been, how shall I say, thoroughly nondescript. Gallardo was a major boost to Akira’s starting staff for awhile, though he’s hit a bit of a wall recently.
Winner: Mofos on a Diamond

6/14 -- Mofos on a Diamond trades Kenny Lofton, Brad Hennessey to The Pimply Backs for Javier Vazquez
Vazquez went on a 8-2 tear after this trade - he’s had a very solid year. Lofton’s only stolen six bases since the trade, and four of them were in the same game. Hennessey’s been decent in relief but hardly gets any saves because the Giants suck. This trade hasn’t killed Jay or anything, but I’ll give a slight edge to Akira on this one since it helped vault him into second place.
Winner: Mofos on a Diamond

6/18 -- Teen Girl Squad trades Stephen Drew, Mike Cameron, Eric Gagne to Tieagles for Miguel Tejada, Moises Alou
Miggy broke his wrist and missed over a month right after I acquired him, but now he and Alou are both back and looking strong. I was unlucky in that respect, but lucky enough to trade Cameron at the tail end of one of his patented hot streaks. Gagne was great as a closer but the trade to Boston killed his value. Drew has been flat-out worthless, much to my (and Nathan’s) disappointment.
Winner: Teen Girl Squad

6/19 -- DurrtySouth Mudcats trades Jack Cust, Tim Lincecum, Chad Billingsley, Jason Schmidt to Tieagles for Torii Hunter
Tough to evaluate since Hunter and Billingsley got traded again, but this was a good haul for Nathan even though Schmidt went down for the year about 45 seconds after the trade was accepted. Cust is actually looking like a borderline potential keeper, which none of us thought at the time of the trade. And Lincecum is the balls.
Winner: Tieagles

6/22 -- T’Bags trades Vladimir Guerrero to DurrtySouth Mudcats for Torii Hunter, Joe Mauer
Unless Mauer is hitting .360 he’s going to be overrated because he doesn’t hit any homers or steal any bases. And I’d take Vlad over Torii any day.
Winner: DurrtySouthMudcats

6/25 -- DurrtySouth Mudcats trades Andruw Jones to Tieagles for Robinson Cano, Chad Billingsley
Andruw’s playing hurt for maybe the first time in his career. He has shown occasional signs of getting his shit together, but not enough to be worth giving up as promising a keeper as Billingsley.
Winner: DurrrtySouthMudcats

6/27 -- Otis Nixon Overdrive trades J.J. Hardy to Lickin’ Cactus for Brad Penny
Satter was trading from strength to land a hitter, and now that Hardy is heating up again he probably is what Satter needs more going down the stretch. But still, he sucked pretty hard for the end of June and all of July, and Penny continues to pitch like an ace and remains the better keeper of the two.
Winner: Otis Nixon Overdrive

7/8 -- The Pimply Backs trades Jim Thome to the long shot for Tim Hudson
Thome put up a .970 OPS in July and is up to 20 HR after missing time early. But Hudson has gone 7-1 since the trade and has been cruising. Both sides won this one.
Winner: Push

7/10 -- El Kabong trades Chase Utley, Ryan Dempster to Mofos on a Diamond for Ryan Braun, Howie Kendrick, Jeremy Accardo
I initially favored Akira’s side of this blockbuster, but of course Utley immediately broke his hand and the outlook is uncertain for the rest of his season. Braun has continued his tear and is going to be a valuable keeper in his own right. (I’d still take Utley over Braun for ‘08, but that’s neither here nor there.) Also Accardo > Dempster, and Kendrick > nothing. Even if Utley hadn’t gone down, Wade would still have done pretty well for himself here.
Winner: El Kabong

8/1 -- Teen Girl Squad trades Delmon Young to DurrtySouth Mudcats for Chien-Ming Wang, Chris Capuano
At this point Delmon had more value to a team more focused on next year and beyond. It’s turned into a disappointing year for a so-called future superstar, and I haven’t missed him at all as Alou was ready to step in for him by now. Wang has been as advertised, but Capuano didn’t pull out of his tailspin like I’d hoped (though his K/BB ratios are still great, strangely enough). I actually dropped him without ever starting him.
Winner: Push

8/5 -- the long shot trades Travis Hafner to DurrtySouth Mudcats for C.C. Sabathia, Robinson Cano, Gary Matthews Jr.
This was when Jeremy still had a, uh, long shot to make the playoffs. A decent haul for a guy playing on one knee, I’d say. But Banjo is playing for next year and Pronk is a gamble worth taking in that respect. Not to mention that Pronk and Banjo sound like two people who should be together at all times. Seriously, I think Banjo needs Pronk, and Pronk needs Banjo. (No disrespect to Cowbell.) I’ll give the edge to the guy who definitely helped himself in ‘07 though.
Winner: the long shot

8/7 -- Mofos on a Diamond trades Michael Cuddyer, Fausto Carmona to Chrum for David Ortiz
Ortiz is banged up too, but apparently so hopped up on painkillers that he still can hit homers without too much problem. Either way he’s the most valuable keeper of the bunch. Carmona still looks ace-like and Chrum was trading from strength (OPS) to land a good pitcher, but he’s having to roll the dice that Giambi can fill Ortiz’s shoes over the next few weeks.
Winner: Mofos on a Diamond

8/14 -- Tieagles trades Mike Piazza, Adam Wainwright to The Mooninites for Justin Upton
Both teams got what they needed here - Joey a solid catcher and resurgent SP for the playoffs, and Nathan one of the most coveted keepers in the game.
Winner: Push

8/23 -- Tieagles trades Jack Cust, Orlando Hernandez to The Pimply Backs for B.J. Upton
One person I discussed this with called it a panic trade for Jay, who may have lost Cole Hamels to the elbow monster last week. I wanted to agree with him -- it’s true that B.J. is an excellent keeper who will stay 2B eligible next year -- but I can’t agree until first I see El Duque show his age and lose a game or two. And Cust sure isn’t looking like a flash in the pan this deep into the season. Jay may have dealt a blow to his chances in ‘08 but he helped himself in the meantime. The bad news is that I don’t think I’m mentally ready to deal with the possibility of Nathan’s team being competitive next year.
Winner: Push

Labels: fantasy baseball, time capsule

16

Hasn’t anyone invented lights yet?
Game called
On account of darkness.


17

I want to play forever—
But with cream and sugar in my coffee,
One must go.


18

Whatever it takes
To help this team win—
Deferred compensation.


19

Naked in Birmingham
And I can’t throw anymore?
The grit of rosin on my fingers.


20

Ah, sitting in the dark
Listening to baseball—
Reminds me of childhood.

Labels: haiku

Labels: ankiel

We all knew it instantly. Even though it was to the deepest part of the park and just barely made it, we all knew it instantly.

You've all seen it by now. All I can add is that the atmosphere in the park vastly surpassed last night's, even before Barry came to bat in the fifth. Possibly because he was showing signs of life against Mike Bacsik even before that (double in the second, single in the third), but who knows. It just felt like the right time. The crowd seemed to feel it coming, not unlike the infamous cat who could smell death.

When it came, it was not necessarily a more intense experience in the stands than, say, a playoff sayonara, or an Auburn-LSU game, but it came close, and it had the unmistakable feel of being unique. People may assume that A-Rod will pass Bonds eventually, but don't be so sure. We very well may never see another night like this in our lifetimes.

The initial moment of jubilation is going to stay with me forever. As will the attendant who immediately ran out to replace the now-historic bases. As will the fans who leaned over the railing to slap the freshly-placed 756 next to Bonds' name on the brick outfield wall. As will Hank Aaron's videotaped kudos, providing fitting (if reserved) closure to the saga. As will the inevitable straggler who traipsed gleefully in from center field, stopped near second base when he realized the cops had him encircled, and had already began to kneel in submission when he took a vicious-looking pin from John Law. Just as understated an intrusion as the ensuing ceremony itself.

But no curtain calls for Bonds! I've never seen a curtain call out here in San Francisco, come to think of it. In my St. Louisan days I saw curtain calls for McGwire, Will Clark, Scott Rolen, Ray Lankford, Jim Edmonds, and probably Bo Hart at some point too. Perhaps things are just different out here by the Bay. But gosh almighty, wouldn't this have been a good time for one? Or are fans really this happy to see the long march end, and a trudge of fifty moribund and poorly-attended games begin?

Equally surprising to me was the double switch that removed Bonds from the game immediately after the fifth. Bruce Bochy even sent starter Barry Zito back out to throw warmups before jerking him out as part of the switch, but Bonds didn't really get the follow-up ovation he was hoping for because the fans didn't yet fully realize he was leaving the game so early. They responded in kind by vacating the premises; by the ninth the seagulls once again may have outnumbered the crowd. Every Bonds-related managerial move made by Bochy in recent weeks has underscored that these few weeks have been an exhibition, a sideshow that has eclipsed the increasingly impotent main event. But I've harped on that enough already by now.

(Good thing Selig wasn't around to see it. Why spoil an event like this with a man guaranteed to turn all the cheers into boos? In the end Selig achieved the unthinkable: make Bonds appear a sympathetic figure by comparison. Not to mention render himself a mere parenthetical paragraph in the recap.)

I promised not to preach, I promised not to take a side, and then I came home from the Call Center tonight and read the piece at ESPN.com that Gene Wojciehowski apparently had prepared for this moment, and something set me off. There's nothing special about it -- a hack job, you've read several just like it already. But it was something about the way it reeked of the self-importance too many of us sportswriters tend to bathe in - dealing in cliches as accepted truths, lumping in Sammy Sosa with the rest despite no evidence to go on aside from the court of public opinion (and it is not often you will find me defending Sammy Sosa in any capacity), falsely dichotomizing Bonds with Hank Aaron in the exact way this article describes, pumping up the mythical importance of 756 with his rhetoric so that it will sound more shocking and meaningful when he anoints it as tainted, with the ever-insipid asterisk. It's not just him though, of course. It feels like it's everyone. Even my new favorite baseball site The Dugout can't get over themselves. More and more often I am being lectured that what is happening to baseball is Wrong, and I am outright commanded (as Wojciehowski does) to care about it.

But I don't care. Nor can I honestly apologize for not caring. Instead I direct you to local chap Ray Ratto's take over at CBS Sportsline. He gets it right.

No matter how the huddled masses of the sports media world tried to frame the Bonds chase, no matter how many snarky Deadspin commenters or "Rome Is Burning" callers parrot some invective they heard from someone somewhere about Bonds or steroids, no matter how many hacks like Wojciehowski unwittingly associate themselves with the likes of Bill O'Reilly by furthering the ever-growing national perception that San Francisco is somehow a separate cultural island with values alien to the rest of America, they can't change how it felt to see that ball arc softly through the air towards the ecstatic arms of the crowd. If this was your town, and if Bonds had been your team's cornerstone for fifteen years, you would have felt it too.


[Our gratitude to The Big Lead for the link.]

Labels: barry bonds, game reports, mlbeat as soapbox

Exactly as I'd feared. This game, a Monday nighter against the lowly (but improving) Nationals, had very little else to it besides the Bonds show. Rookies Lincecum and John Lannan matched 7 IP, 1 ER lines but did so with high effort: 24 baserunners allowed between them on nine walks. Sounds exciting enough, but both lineups in the game were sufficiently nonthreatening (Kevin Frandsen, D'Angelo Jimenez, Nook Logan, Ron Belliard, Brian Schneider, etc.) that there was little tension at any point. Not an inspiring performance in the bunch, save for Randy Winn who went 4-5 with four singles, occupied first base in front of Bonds three times, and knocked in the game-winner. By which point 75% of the crowd was already gone.

Besides Bonds' plate appearances, there was no tension in the air tonight, and it was tough for this crowd to ramp up the intensity out of nowhere for one at single bat every couple innings. It was Irish Night at the ballpark and the Irish turnout was noticeable, which produced a much more interesting clientele than usual, not to mention more traditional jigs and bagpipe tunes than usual, but maybe this sort of crowd had acquired its tickets well ahead of time for *that* reason and thus wasn't quite diehard enough to be really worthy of a major night in baseball's history. (How do I measure diehard at AT&T Park these days? By the enthusiasm for Lincecum's every move: there should be a lot more of it these days.) Sure the flashbulbs popped like mad on every pitch to Bonds, just as they did back in the McGwire days, but it had the feel of a night that folks wanted to be able to someday say they were a part of, more so than a night everyone actually wanted to be a part of. That's the way it came across to me at least. Give me a pennant-chase game any day of the week and play two of 'em on Sunday.

Little to say about Bonds tonight. Today's first-inning video testimonial came from Muhammad Ali (his son, technically) and Bonds made very little show of his applause in response. (A couple weeks earlier it had been Joe Montana, which the crowd devoured.) At the plate he tried, but didn't do it tonight. That's really the best thing about home runs in general: they're still rare enough that you can never truly expect them, or at least it's unfair to expect them. John Lannan pitched to him, did so successfully, and he made sure that when he erred he did so on the side of walking him. History won't remember him for that. Job well done.

We'll be back at the Call Center tomorrow. If history gets made, we promise not to pontificate about it. A hundred percent pontification-free zone, this.

Well wait a sec, just let me have this one. A certain pet peeve has been festering within me, spreading and growing moldy patches and tentacles over several years, and one occurrence of it tonight really colonized my colon. Kindly direct your attention to the bottom of the fourth, when Rajai Davis (playing his first home game as a newly-acquired Giant) rolled a grounder to Ryan Zimmerman at third with two out and Lincecum running at first. The Washington third baseman played it nonchalantly, bending to his right instead than making the one shuffle required to get in position, and he booted it. The ball hit him in the glove, then flopped to the ground on his left side, just far enough away that as it came to a gentle rest, Zimmerman had to give up on it.

The official scorer called the play a hit.

Does anyone else feel the error has been completely devalued in baseball over the last few, or last several years? I am but a simple unresourceful blogger with not a crumb of evidence to back me up, but for many years I have been getting the feeling that a play like this, a play that once would have been scored an error, no question, is now scored a hit. I've heard one theory that this trend is real, and it's the influence of the home team to pump up their players' stats -- and Brian Sabean wants Davis to rack up all the hits he can I'm sure, for his own sake. But do agents influence this process as well? Is there a review system in place for official scorers in baseball?

Think of the consequences. Fewer errors keeps a player's defensive numbers artificially better (fielding pct. and total errors), though more advanced fielding stats might still have him pegged. But more importantly, fewer errors means more hits. More hits means better offensive statistics across the board: average, RBI, OPS, VORP, all of the above. They go in the book just as if they were hard line-drive singles to right, and that means better credentials for everyone. Sure, it does mean more earned runs and higher ERAs for pitchers -- and you know some veteran pitchers probably hate it -- but pitchers' numbers are more likely to be evaluated in context of their league and era. How many times have you heard an announcer say so-and-so's 4.50 ERA is actually decent for the American League, or baseball in general these days? How much of that can possibly be steroids?

Well I hate to play the pest, but bottom line -- if a professional major leaguer has a routine play and he doesn't make it, score that shit an error. Some gray area can remain, but on a play like Zimmerman's tonight... I'm sorry but I must insist that my scorecard's interpretation of that play be instated as the interpretation of record. The truth shall win out in the end! Two and two are four! Oceania has not always been at war with Eurasia!

Labels: barry bonds, game reports, mlbeat as soapbox

Two weeks ago I wrote of Bondsapalooza as if it were to be a furious week-long homestand that saw Barry ramp up his HR rate just in time to pass Aaron before the Giants hit the road again. That was a bit overeager of me. Taking into account Bonds' age and general creakiness, the desire of every opposing pitcher to avoid Al Downing-dom, and the Giants' overall irrelevance which allows those opposing pitchers to handle the Giants' lineup any way they damn well please, it makes sense that the home run march has slowed to a plod while every columnist and blogger savors that one last chance to get that one last sanctimonious opinion in that will surely render the others irrelevant.

But then Bonds finally nudged his way up to 755 over the weekend (courtesy of Clay Hensley, one of many confirmed 'roiders who have escaped any trace of public ire) and now comes home again with nothing in his way but a week's worth of Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates pitchers. The slate for this week is, well, less than intimidating:

Monday: John Lannan (LHP, two career starts, 5.40 ERA)
Tuesday: Mike Bacsik (LHP, 5.11 ERA in 36 career appearances)
Wednesday: Tim Redding (RHP, 2.43 ERA in 37 IP this year but 4.94 career ERA)
Thursday: Joel Hanrahan (RHP, two career starts, 3.27 ERA)
Friday: Matt Morris (RHP, banished to the Pirates just last week in a widely ridiculed trade...for the Pirates)
Saturday: Tony Armas (RHP, 6.31 ERA this year, 4.57 career)
Sunday: Tom Gorzelanny (RHP, 3.55 ERA, decent pitcher but just coming back from a shoulder injury)

That, friends, is the picture of mediocre starting pitching. Barry breaking the record this week is a shoo-in, a gimme, a mortal lock, sun rising in the east, death and taxes and the government spying on you. Book it.

Oh, and if it happens tonight or tomorrow, then yours truly will have something to write about because yours truly will be in attendance. Going by the standard mores of sports journalism, it will make my resulting opinions on the matter more Right and Relevant if I am actually there while it happens. So I might have that going for me, which would be nice.

Labels: barry bonds

Braves cut Julio Franco today.

Braves fans have to be thrilled about yesterday's trading deadline bonanza, which netted them Octavio Dotel, Royce Ring and Ron Mahay to shore up the bullpen, not to mention plugged the biggest hole in the lineup with the biggest hole-plugger on the market in Mark Teixeira. Put simply, John Schuerholz realized the highest hopes that every fan has for their team on trading day. No small feat, that. And it was obvious that some roster-jiggling would need to take place to make all the new acquisitions fit.

Still, to cut Papa Julio in favor of the .220-hitting Scott Thorman is not bound to be fruitful, and we know it's not a crowd-pleaser. Franco turns 49 this month, meaning all he has to do is latch on with some needy team for one more year to achieve his stated dream of playing 'til 50.

Labels: atlanta braves