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Movement All Around

I’m still ticked off that Jim Thome was moved to the Dodgers. Not only does that kill his value for a couple of teams that I have him, the deal also came down after I set my lineups for this week meaning I’ll likely get two or three at-bats out of my UT spot this week. Great. If you want to read some actual analysis of the deal and not just me complaining about it, click on my Around the Horn piece. Make sure you read the part about the monster helmet that David Wright will be wearing now that he is back from a concussion. Good stuff – even if I’m biased cause I wrote it myself. And if you are wondering if it’s bad form to give yourself props about something you have written the answer is certainly yes, but I’m still going to do it anyway.

Good job Ray.

I mentioned it today in my Player Rater piece, but is there anyone out there that knows that Michael Young has an 18-game hitting streak? That guy is flat out money, the Ichiro of the infield if you wish – minus the steals, the cool name and the sweet gliding stroke.

Am I the only one getting whiplash from all of these rookies being called up? I remember back in the day when I didn’t care about who the 33rd guy was on the Giants. Now that it’s my job, man, this is a lot of work.

Let me see if I got this right. The Brewers ostensibly sent J.J. Hardy to the minors under the auspices of two main lines of thought. (1) Hardy was hitting only .229 with a .367 SLG so he was hitting terribly. No disputing that fact. (2) The club wanted to give flashy youngster Alcides Escobar a chance to show his wares in the majors which he has done pretty well hitting .286 over 49 at-bats. He has made three errors in 17 games, but overall he has been pretty much as advertised. However, there is a third and more insidious reason that Hardy was sent to the minors; it was to avoid paying him money or in the least to maintain control over him for another season. Turns out that by sending him down for three weeks the Brewers were able to delay his free agency until after the 2011 season. Real classy Brewers.

The Royals did the same thing to their third basemen, Alex Gordon, when they sent him to the minors ostensibly because he was struggling after fighting his way back from hip surgery to return to the field. Gordon was hitting .222 with a .643 OPS in about a month’s worth of games with the Royals, so like Hardy he wasn’t exactly tearing it up, but it appears that this decision was merely undertaken to push Gordon’s free agency back to after the 2013 season. In the Brewers case at least they had a real reason, after all they are super high on Escobar, but the Royals have no one to plug into third if Gordon isn’t there. Not just that, wasn’t Gordon supposed to be their franchise player? I’m almost willing to give the Royals the benefit of the doubt here, after all they did bring in guys like Jose Guillen and Kyle Farnsworth who have contracts that far outpace their on-field work, but even if I do give the club a free pass, I think the way they are handling Gordon is awful. If he wasn’t healthy, wouldn’t it make more sense to give him three more weeks at Triple-A and then recall him to the majors for good versus the other way around? Overall Gordon is hitting .307 with a .985 OPS in 75 minor league at-bats, so it’s not doing him much good spending time on the farm.

Isn’t it fitting that the best lefty in baseball, Johan Santana (elbow) had surgery the same day that his teammate and arguably the biggest left-handed tease in the game, Oliver Perez (knee), also went under for a medical procedure? Both should be fine for the start of 2010, though that means something totally different for both hurlers – one will likely return to excellence, the other will just be trying to avoid hitting batters who are in the on-deck circle.

One last positive note. It likely won’t have any bearing on a single fantasy team, but it’s great news that Aaron Boone has made a miraculous recovery from open heart surgery and he has been added to the Astros roster. Good for you Aaron.

By Ray Flowers

Life Just Isn't Fair

Continuing my basically week long rant against the world and “the man,” I wanted to voice some continued frustration at the plight of one of my baseball team’s, the one that I have rostered in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC). For those of you who haven’t ever played, it’s a nationwide event with a grand prize of $100,000. Leagues are 15 teams, 5 x 5 scoring, with 30 spots on each roster, and we use a FAAB bidding process with no trading allowed. Because of the depth of the rosters, help off of waivers is often tough to find, so sometimes you have to just sit a struggling player on your bench and hope he comes around as there may not be any better options left to pick up off waivers. Here are a few specific gripes I have with my club which currently sits in 8th place (last year we finished one run, that’s right, one run, out of first place in my 15-team league, so I was obviously already frustrated with this league even before I drafted my team for 2009. By the way, I co-manage the team with Fanball big-wig Ryan Houston).

Dan Haren has been utterly spectacular at fourth in the NL in ERA (2.42), first in WHIP (0.86), third in innings pitched (78) and he has been the toughest starter in the league to hit with a .201 batting average against. Thanks to the suck-ass D’backs offense however, he is just 4-4 through 11 starts which is one of the main reasons our team is 14th in the league in wins. Another reason for this fact is that Joba Chamberlain has just three victories in 10 starts despite a 3.71 ERA for the Yankees. Toss in the work of Jered Weaver who has been spectacular (5-2, 2.26 ERA, 1.00 WHIP), and those three guys have pitched 207 innings, a full seasons worth, while producing a 2.70 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP, all the while producing only a 12-7 record. For a little historical perspective, do you know how many pitchers have posted an ERA below 2.75 with a WHIP below 1.05 only to win 12 or fewer games in a season of at least 162 innings since 2000? Try one by Ben Sheets in 2004 (he went 12-14 with a 2.70 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP.

On offense, we needed power late as we had a ton of batting average potential (guys like Albert Pujols, Ichiro, Michael Young and Placido Polanco) so we took a shot at three guys who we thought should produce something along the lines of about 90 home runs while hitting .250 in Jim Thome, Jason Giambi and Rick Ankiel. Giambi has gone deep the past two days, but the trio has so far underperformed that I almost threw a Nerf football at the television last night out of frustration. Combined, they have hit .231 with 19 home runs and 70 RBI in 419 at-bats. Great job guys.

To be fair, we’ve certainly had a few things work out.

Our first pick, Albert Pujols, has once again been magnificent with his .343-16-45-42-7 line.

Our ninth round selection, Joe Mauer, has been flipping awesome. We did this draft in late March, and at the time no one knew what to expect from Mauer – there were even whispers about surgery and potentially missing half the season. But we felt that we could no longer pass on him in the ninth round, and he has rewarded that faith with a month and a half that none of us have ever seen from a catcher as he is batting .436 with 12 home runs, 35 RBI and 32 runs through just 31 games.

And finally, our 30th and final round pick, Marco Scutaro, who we took for his versatility (2B, SS, 3B) which can be huge in a league as deep as this one, is hitting .298 with five home runs, five steals, and 43 runs scored in 55 games. Not a bad number 436 pick eh?

Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint, we all know that. So let’s hope our guys all have a strong finishing kick and we can hang close enough for it to matter once we hit the month of September.

By Ray Flowers

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