The Gowanus Rotisserie Baseball Gazette

Breeders Cup Preview Part II: The Picks and Contest

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:19:00 +0000

Between being on trial this week and having to do 500 other things, we are sadly bereft of the time to do a full preview on this year's Breeders Cup and the 14 races. So let's try something different and see how it works. We'll pick 1-2-3 each race and next week, compare our results with the Daily Racing Form's expert's picks. We'll do the comparison in 2 ways:

(1) On a simple results fashion, who had the most winners, etc.
(2) On a paramutuel basis, which will be more interesting. For kicks, in each races we'll say that we (and the DRF people) are making the following wagers:

$5 to win, place and show on the win horse
$5 to place and show on the place horse
$5 to show on the show horse
$2 exacta box on each race of the top 3 horses
$1 trifecta box on each race of the top 3 horses

That comes to $48 "bet" per race, for a $672 "bankroll" for the weekend. Let's see how we stack up. For now, the picks:

Marathon	1. Man of Iron
	2. Mastery
	3. Eldaafer

JF Turf	1. Lillie Langtry
	2. Hatheer
	3. Junia Tenzia

Juv Fillies	1. Always a Princess
	2. Biofuel
	3. Zilva

F&M Turf	1. Forever Together
	2. Rutherienne
	3. Midday

F&M Sprint	1. Seventh Street
	2. Ventura
	3. Sara Louise

Distaff	1. Music Note
	2. Life is Sweet
	3. Careless Jewel

Juv Turf	1. Pounced
	2. Viscount Nelson
	3. King Ledley

Turf Sprint	1. Lord Shanakill
	2. Diamondrella
	3. Desert Code

Sprint	1. Gayego
	2. Crown of Thorns
	3. Dancing in Silks

Juvenile	1. Radiohead
	2. Alfred Nobel
	3. Aspire

Mile	1. Goldikova
	2. Ferneley
	3. Zacinto

“Dirt” Mile	1. Mastercraftsman
	2. Neko Bay
	3. Ready’s Echo

Turf	1. Conduit
	2. Telling
	3. Spanish Moon

Classic	1. Richard’s Kid
	2. Twice Over
	3. Mine That Bird

Open Comment Thread to Discuss New Rules Proposals

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:00:00 +0000

If you're not a league member, I have no idea why you're reading this. For now, though, we're reprinting Scot's and Angelo's emails from earlier today regarding proposed rule changes. Let's have discussion in the comments section.

Scot:

As for me, I've proposed that we remove the weighting from the lottery (for the 2011 draft) and that we change how the eligibility for prospects are enforced.

For the lottery, I want to remove some of the temptation to tank once your team is out of the running. If the owners who place 4 - 12 all have the same shot at the first round pick, then finishing in last isn't as tempting. Of course, you still guarantee your team the 1st or 2nd round pick, but it's a step in the right direction. Angelo's option is also good as it goes further and distributes the first 9 picks all by lottery so you have no idea what pick you'll end up with. Angelo, is the lottery in your proposal weighted still?

For the prospects, I'm trying to remove the manual tracking that goes on during the season to watch whether a prospect exceeds the games (or IP) limits. Under my proposal, you would check those limits twice: after the draft when you add newly drafted players to your prospect slots and when keepers are announced and you declare which players you are keeping in prospect slots. During the season, if a player exceeds the limits, nothing happens. You can keep him reserved the whole season with no consequence. Once keepers are announced, he won't qualify anymore so you will have to spend a real slot to keep him at that time. I realize this takes away some of the "simulation" aspect of the prospects as a regular major leaguer can sit in a prospect slot all season (like Andrus probably would have done this past season if the game limit had not been enforced), but I think it's a worthwhile loss to get rid of the manual tracking involved.

Angelo:

A brief explanation on my rule changes/proposals:
In my proposal for the lottery, it's not weighted. So basically, you have no idea if you'll have pick 1-9 until February. My idea has less to do with an anti-tanking provision than to give some relief to teams that routinely finish in 4th - 7th, which as was discussed during the year is no-man's land.
My suggestion for the prospect list allows teams to accumulate prospects during the year, which I think would help rebuilding teams. However, you still can only keep two prospects; I don't think the prospect list should become an entire AA roster for a team.
I've suggested changing the pitching slots every year, and won't rehash that argument.
My suggestion for expanding the bench and/or DL is also to help crappy teams take more flyers on guys at the end of the year and to balance the fact that since steroid use is down, injuries are up. I am a Met fan, remember.
Last, my proposal for Net Steals is to punish guys who steal a lot of bases with minimal efficiency. (And I'm looking at....you, Chone Figgins.) I was also going to throw the idea of changing "saves" to Net Saves to punish the Brian Fuentes of the world, but that seemed a bridge too far.

Hobble The Angels

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

After watching Bobby Abreu run into what seemed like the 8 millionth dumb baserunning out of recent Angels playoff history, I was inspired to take a look at just how badly they've bungled the bases come October. Full results are here, but the upshot is that they've cost themselves about six expected runs in only 30 games, an exhibition of basrunning so bad that it rivals Mike Lowell's 2009 season on the basepaths. Check out the full post if you have a spare moment; it should be in a public part of the linked site.

Breeders Cup Preview Part I: The Forgotten Horse?

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:24:00 +0000

We're three weeks out from the Breeders Cup, which means it's time to start taking stock in the quality of the fields and getting some general ideas about the potential runners. Let's start the process by looking at a horse that may get overlooked in the big race, the Classic.

So far the Classic has taken a beating in the horse racing media, and they haven't even drawn the field yet. Sea of Stars, who was hailed as the best European horse since Mill Reef, retired after the Arc despite being perfectly healthy. The best horse in America, Rachel Alexandra, has called it a year, having beaten every three year old of note and all the east coast dirt horses that are any good. The next best storyline, the undefeated filly Zenyatta, may or may not decide to take on the boys in the Classic, and even if she does, she'll be overbet based on her record.

Turning to the probable favorites in the Classic beyond Zenyatta and it stays a little dicey. In the wake of two Euros making up last year's Classic exacta, the favorites on everyone's tongue are Aidan O'Brien's pair of accomplished milers, Rip van Winkle and Mastercraftsman. While clearly they can win, they're going to be 2-1 and 5-1 respectively, and offer no paramutuel appeal. Summer Bird, winner of the Belmont, Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup, is a nice horse, but hasn't won anything outside of New York and has trained like garbage over synthetic tracks. American turf sensation Gio Ponti should be competitive with his usual effort, but his previous efforts on synthetics are unimpressive. California mainstays like Colonel John, Tiago and Richard's Kid do not exactly get the pulse racing. And the top East Coast older horses like Macho Again and Bullsbay look to be too slow.

However, still lurking out there is a colt that once made headlines and has since disappeared from the public's eye....

...this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird.

We know, we're the same guys that ranked him 20th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby, where all he did was rally from DAF'ing last to win by the largest margin since Assault. What's he been doing since then, for those of us who haven't been paying attention?

Preakness: Mine That Bird loses jockey Calvin Borel to Rachel Alexandra and picks up Mike Smith as his new rider. Perhaps as a result of the bad karma that came with Smith (his ex-girlfriend, Chantal Sutherland, was MTB's regular rider in Canada), Mine That Bird runs a huge race, but doesn't get a great trip and has to settle for second behind Rachel Alexandra. Arguably, it's more impressive than his Derby win.

Belmont Stakes: Calvin Borel has one of the odder weeks for a jockey. Even though he's based out of Kentucky and is not particularly familiar with the Belmont surface, Borel takes the entire week of the Belmont off and doesn't ride a single race at the track until the Stakes. Bad idea. He fails to appreciate how quirky Belmont's enormous turns are and misses a pronounced rail bias, makes a premature move in the turn with MTB, who flattens out to run third to Summer Bird and Dunkirk. It's unclear if he would have won with a better ride but he certainly would have had a shot if Borel knew how to ride at Belmont.

West Virginia Derby: Eschewing the big early August races (the Jim Dandy and Haskell), the connections of MTB send him to bucolic Chester, West Virginia to run in the West Virginia Derby for a seemingly easier paycheck. Wrong. Sent off at 9-10 odds, he gets the quick pace he wanted, but Mike Smith, back in the irons, sends him after the leaders way too early, and he has nothing left for the stretch run as he settles for third place. This prompts the connections to decide to take off the rest of August and September, and have one prep for the Breeders Cup:

Goodwood: With Borel back in the saddle, MTB sets in at dead last about 12 lengths off the lead, and runs 6th. Oddly, this was his best race since the Preakness. He wasn't asked to move until 2 furlongs out, and did respond, albeit not with rocket speed. He closed nicely into a moderate pace and looked like a horse that needed the race to "tighten" up for a big spot. (As noted by Steve Crist, Zenyatta, who ran that same day, would have lost to him.)

So where does this put him for the Breeders Cup Classic? Well, there's still no guarantee he likes a synthetic track; he ran dead last in the Breeders Cup Juvenile last year, and Borel's comments after the Goodwood weren't that inspiring. What is true, though, is that we can expect a fair pace in the Classic this year and the extra furlong will be to his benefit. We're not sure he can win. But you're getting a horse that likes the distance, likes the race shape, and may be peaking at 15-1 or possibly higher. Is he the answer we're looking for? He just may be.

Taking Requests (or "Ou sont les Neifis d'antan?")

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:00:00 +0000

(That's right, a French subtitle. We here at the GRBG are nothing if not cosmopolitan polygots.)

It has come to our attention that, as is so often the case come the cold rains of autumn, some of our readership are casting their minds back to those halcyon days when the league was young. Specifically, these readers want to get a sense of how the league owners stack up all-time, over the life of the league.

Ordinarily we would just ignore those readers, as we take pride in generating maximum levels of annoyance. Here, though, the public may be on to something. And when someone somewhere is on to something, we here at the GRBG make a chart. So put this marzipan in your pie plate, bingo:

	AVG FINISH	AVG PTS	Cashes	Cash %	Wins	Win %
Tucker (8)	2.1	91.7	6	0.750	4	0.500
Scot (5)	3.8	81.7	4	0.800	1	0.200
Jake (8)	4.6	76.6	4	0.500	1	0.125
Alex (7)	5.3	73.3	2	0.286	1	0.143
Teddy (8)	6.1	69.3	2	0.250	0	0.000
Darrandrew† (7)	6.1	68.2	2	0.286	1	0.143
Angelo (8)	6.4	60.4	2	0.250	0	0.000
Corey* (5-ish)	6.7	63.3	1	0.200	0	0.000
Matty G. (3)	7.2	58.2	0	0.000	0	0.000
Will (7)	7.9	58.9	1	0.143	0	0.000
Jon (7)	8.0	55.6	0	0.000	0	0.000
Sahil (8)	8.4	51.1	0	0.000	0	0.000
Andy (8)	8.6	53.6	0	0.000	0	0.000
Dave (1)	9.0	48.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Vihar (1)	9.0	48.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Other Scot (1)	9.0	48.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Mike* (3)	9.0	47.5	0	0.000	0	0.000
Val (1)	12.0	27.5	0	0.000	0	0.000

† Coupled as an entry because of past joint ownership.
* Split '07 season; finish assigned to Mike.
(Note--more boring methodological stuff at the end of the post)

Obviously there's a lot to digest here. Let's start with the obvious questions: who's been the best and who's been the worst?

On the happy side, there's a pretty clear #1, with Tucker leading in every category except Cash %, where he's edged out by the consistency of Scot, the clear league #2. Five different guys have won the league title, which is actually a sneaky big level of parity given Tucker's long shadow.

On the less happy side, there isn't anything like as clear of a consensus (thankfully). Just going by the numbers, Val has set a floor that cannot be lowered. But is it really fair to hang the goat horns on a guy who was only in the league one year?

Well then maybe M*ke is our man, with his across-the-board worst numbers for multi-year owners. But again, he was only here for 2.5 of the 8 seasons.

Maybe the solution is to do this in tiers. Mike is probably the overall anti-champ. But let's be brave and look at the bottom of the veteran barrel. There are three main contenders: governor lowercase and the Brothers Eldersamozof, each with a unique claim to the throne. Eldersamozov the Lesser has the worst average ordinal finish, gl has the worst average point total, and Eldersamozov the Elder has the worst "best" performance, having finished no better than 5th in any season. We should also note that six different guys have finished last, so it's not as though there's really a habitual punching bag here. Accordingly, we are thrilled to declare it a tie and move on.

What about your humble authors, you might ask? Well, we've both ended up in the middle, though via different routes. As you'll see below in the records section, El Angelo has had a stunning variety of oddball seasons. Teddy, by contrast, has largely been boring--just about all you could hang on him is the dreaded label of "Best Never To Win A Major". Still, there's something oddly fun about the idea of two abject mediocrities offering advice to both ends of the league bell curve.

For your further delectation, here are a few random nuggets from the detailed data we used to create the chart.

Best Single-Season Point Total: 106 (Le Dupont Torkies, 2004)
Worst Single-Season Point Total: 19 (El Angelo, 2007 . . . and 2008)

Most Points By Non-Winner: 98 (Darrandrew, 2008)
Fewest Points By Winner: 84 (Alex, 2003)

Most Points By Non-Casher: 86.5 (El Angelo, 2009)
Fewest Points By Casher: 79.5 (El Angelo, 2003)

Average point totals for each ordinal rank:

1st: 96.1
2d: 90.5
3d: 87.4
4th: 80.4
5th: 73.5
6th: 67.6
7th: 63.6
8th: 58.0
9th: 53.0
10th: 44.2
11th: 38.4
12th: 27.7

-----------------------------------
OK, we suppose that we ought to explain what all those numbers mean. The number in parentheses next to the owner name represents the number of seasons the owner has participated in. AVG FINISH is derived by adding up the owners ordinal rank for each season, and dividing the total by the seasons participated in. Because the ordinal numbers can sometimes disguise how close (or not) two teams are, we've also thrown in AVG PTS to show the historic average point totals as well. The rest is hopefully self-explanatory.

For the '02 season, we assigned places 1-6 and 12, and put everyone else at T-9. Since we don't have point totals for that year, we used the average ordinal rank point totals above. Selah.

End of Season Analysis: This Year's Prospect List

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:00:00 +0000

When we started the Wankdorf league, it came with the idea of having a prospect list, and everyone got to put a pair of players on the list who wouldn't take up keeper slots. In the initial draft, the slots were occupied by the good (Mark Teixeira), the bad (Austin Kearns) and the ugly (Nick Papagiorgio). Unfortunately for the commish, there was no rule that you couldn't add and drop players as the year went on, making it a logistical nightmare. When owners like me and Ironhead started dropping actual prospects and added Steve Gutenberg and Ted Williams' (Now Defiled) Head, it was clearly time for the list to go.

The list was brought back in 2007 with the caveat that you can't add or drop players during the year, meaning that in theory, you should pay attention when you pick players. While the prospect list wasn't ignored in '07 and '08, this year it got some extra attention in the draft. Last year I was mocked (by Andy, of all people) for taking David Price in the 8th round of the draft. This year nobody laughed Scot took a pitcher still in college in the 5th round, and by the 8th round, half a dozen prospects had been taken. You can chalk that up to people deciding that Tim Beckham was a more worthwhile investment than Mike Aviles (also picked by Andy, who coincidentally, finished in last this year) or everyone just trying to be a genius.

Six months later let's see how everyone did with their picks, bearing in mind that we won't know if some of these guys are any good for a couple of years.

Definite Hits

Gordon Beckham (Mission Accomplished). A midseason callup eligible at 2 positions who hit like a rookie of the year. He helped this team this year and should be a keeper for the foreseeable future.

Tommy Hanson (Le Dupont Torkies). He's already Atlanta's second-best pitcher and is a key reason this team repeated.

Rick Porcello (Unenviable Position). Helluva pitcher, stuck on a rebuilding fantasy team. Problematically, by the time Chad's squad gets good, the Tigers will suck.

Andrew McCutchen (Evil League of Evil). I'm sure Scot would have preferred this guy staying in AAA all season, but he's looked pretty good since being called up, albeit on a team that hasn't had a winning season since George H.W. Bush left office.

Oops

Chris Tillman (Mission Accomplished, traded to Unenviable Position); Cameron Maybin (wormcheese mousebird); Travis Snider (The Loose Bowels). These 3 guys weren't bad prospects in theory, but they've all exhausted their prospect eligibility this year and have sucked in the process. Query whether any are worth a keeper slot.

Brett Anderson (Flaccid Funiculi). Anderson had a nice rookie year. Sadly for Will, it was on Tucker's team.

Top Prospects for '10

Neftali Feliz (Unenviable Position). He ranks first in this group because in his cup of coffee he's looked like a stud. He's next years David Price.

Stephen Strasberg (Evil League of Evil). Still a scary good prospect. Unsure how helpful he'll be in 2010, mostly because the Nats suck.

Wade Davis (wormcheese mousebird). Tampa's next big thing on the hill and a big reason they dealt Scott Kazmir for 5 boxes of Ding Dongs.

Pedro Alvarez (Wu Tang Financial). Good news: he recovered from a slow start in the minors. Better news: this fantasy team needs a new infield badly, and he'll probably be a cornerstone of it from 2011-2016.

Buster Posey (It's Enrico Palazzo). Not sure why he spent most of September riding the pine in San Francisco, but he should be a fun call up next year and will be their 2nd best hitter by Arbor Day.

Prospects With Questions

Tim Beckham (Aroids Anonymous). The wrong Beckham? It's way too early to write him off but his luster faded a little this year.

Brian Matsusz (Wu Tang Financial). Looked so-so in his call up this year. Fortunately, he only pitched 44 innings for the O's and maintained his eligibility, the problem is there's no reason to think he'll be any good next year.

Madison Bumgarner (The Spam Avengers). Why does he have a woman's name?

Carlos Carrasco (Flaccid Funiculi). A toss-in from the Cliff Lee trade, he may have 4th starter written all over him.

Mike Moustakas (Aroids Anonymous). He's young, but showed very little in High A ball. Of course, he could have just been depressed about living in Wilmington, Delaware.

Josh Fields (Le Dupont Torkies). I have still never heard of this guy. Did Tucker take the modern Sid Fynch?

Prospects Gone Bad

Lars Anderson (It's Enrico Palazzo). Projects to be the next Alan Zinter. Wonderful.

Adam Miller (The Spam Avengers). His arm may have fallen off.

Nick Adenhart (The Loose Bowels). Well, I suppose it's better than having Angel Villalona. [Note: do we know where Villalona was on the night of Adenhart's accident? I think we might have cracked the case!--Teddy]

Busts

Gio Gonzalez (Recalcitrant Cobbler). Spent most of the year in the majors pitching poorly. May have gotten whiplash from all the homers he's allowed.

Elvis Andrus (Recalcitrant Cobbler). A fun prospect to end on, because he's the perfect example of a nice MLB player that's so-so for fantasy purposes. He may win ROTY based on defense, good fundamentals and a funny name. And he'll probably be in the majors for more than a decade, on a fantasy team every year, and never kept. We have found the new Orlando Cabrera.

Not to Beat a Dead Horse, But...

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:46:00 +0000

Runs scored rankings during the regular season for the remaining N.L. and A.L.:

A.L....................................N.L.

New York (1).....................Philadelphia (2)
L.A. Angels (2)..................L.A. Dodgers (3)

Pitching and Defense

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Remember, kids, winning teams are built around pitching and defense. As proof, here are the top ten A.L. teams pitching and defense teams as measured by runs allowed, with playoff teams bolded:

1. Seattle
2. Chicago
3. Boston
4. Texas
5. Detroit
6. New York
7. Tampa Bay
8. Minnesota
T-9. L.A./Anaheim
T-9. Oakland

See? All the playoff teams are in the top ten. Compare that with A.L. team offensive rankings, as measured by runs scored, again with playoff teams bolded:

1. New York
2. L.A./Anaheim
3. Boston
4. Minnesota
. . .
Wait.

Never mind.

Drive-By Tuckers

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:12:00 +0000

Congratulations to Le Dupont Torkies for their win this season. Aroids Anonymous overcame evil supercomputer Nate Silver for second, and Recalcitrant Cobbler made a stirring late charge to hit the board for third. On behalf of my colleague (who is currently indisposed by both trial work and an incoherent, stuttering rage at his team's offensive collapse), thanks to all for a fun season.

As for the blog, we have a couple more league-related posts on tap (i.e. at look at the prospects of each team's, er, prospects), and doubtless will have something to say about the MLB playoffs this month. That will take us up to El Angelo's award-winning Breeders Cup coverage in late October/early November. Apres ca, le deluge.

A Silly Thought, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:42:00 +0000

Now that we’ve set up our weird little thought experiment, let’s take a moment to (1) consider what, if anything, it actually tells us, and (2) as is SOP here at the GRBG, seize the opportunity to praise or mock people based on limited samples of questionable data.

Lesson the First: You Can’t Fight Genetics

Some years you get the bear; some years the bear gets you. The data impart this lesson in two ways.

First, a substantial portion of league success is down to getting good seasons out of the guys you draft. The bizarro league accurately reflects the group of teams who will finish in the 2-4 slots, and pegged three other teams to within one place of their reality rankings. Never mind that those six teams have completed something like 250 transactions between them; their destinies were pretty well set from day one.

Second, the huge PECOTA misses are mostly reflected in both the bizarro and reality standings, meaning that the power of player variance (or owner clairvoyance) usually trumps in-season maneuvering. For example, IEP’s precipitous crash is reflected in both the bizarro and reality standings; it’s tough to see what he could have done to pull out of the nosedive even if he had bothered to pay attention this year. And in the other direction, AA ends up in the same place (2d) in both leagues despite completing numerous major trades in the live league. All that sound and fury amounted to basically nothing compared to being right about Carl Crawford back in March.

Lesson the Second: Unless, That Is, You Live in D.C.

The Torkies, Funiculi, and Loose Bowels all did their best to fight their genes. Of course, while the Torkies and FF decided to overcome their limitations and beat their bizarro doppelgangers by 4 and 6 places, respectively, the TLB decided to devolve all the way to the bottom. According to reliable reports, the commish spent much of yesterday beating a femur against a large stone obelisk; we can but trust that positive results will follow shortly.

So with those bits of wisdom carved into digital stone, let’s move on to the awards.

The “Suck it, Nate Silver” Award

Goes to AA for just crushing his PECOTA projection, which appeared to assume that he had drafted a team of conceptual performance artists rather than ballplayers. Also the winner of the “Best Draft” award, and likely reason why half of the league will switch to Ron Shandler next season.

The Tim Geithner “Why Do I Bother?” Award

Goes to wormcheese mousebird. After trading away half of his opening day roster (and a couple of chunks of mine to boot), he ended up all of one place away from where PECOTA and the bizarro world predicted he would. Let’s see, the owner engaged in frenzied activity in support of frequently criticized grand plans, yet maintained a permanent belief that the fundamentals were strong and the team would soon turn the corner. Can’t understand how a guy like that ended up at the Fed.

The King Lear Memorial “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” Trophy

Goes to IEP. Fate’s a bitch.

The Barack Obama Presidential Citation for Overcoming Adversity

Goes to Flaccid Funiculi; beating your fate by 6 spots is a nice achievement. It shows that anyone can achieve in this league, even those who, like FF, were born in Kenya.

The Chase Utley MVP Award

Can’t really go anywhere but to Le Dupont Torkies. The 6 spot gap between PECOTA and bizarro world? The cynical could write that off as luck. Taking that “lucky” roster another 4 spots to the top? Well, that’s pretty good.

A Silly Thought Experiment and Concomitantly Modest Proposal

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:24:00 +0000

As we've noted elsewhere, the "official" GRBG league predictions as generated by Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA data were less than razor sharp crossbow accurate. But, as noted in the prediction post, there were three problems with our use of PECOTA. One of those problems--PECOTA's inability to factor in the performance of owners--clearly contributed to the predictions' shortcomings.

We here at the GRBG wondered whether there was a way to separate out managerial performance and see how PECOTA would have done based on the rosters as drafted. As we wondered this, our eyes wandered to our Yahoo! notification stream, which informed us for the 200th consecutive day that Troy Percival was on the injured list, yet in our starting lineup. And then we remembered:

The Death Ship.

Because of various wacky mishaps with the draft system (and a certain owner's apparent inability to read a watch), on draft day the league created an alternate reality. That reality contained slightly warped copies of all our teams, with rosters as they stood after the completion of most of the draft. The bizarro league was then sealed up and left to play itself out without material interference from us. It became, essentially, a control group. So did PECOTA do any better predicting the bizarro world? Here are the predictions vs the actual standings:

PECOTA	Bizarro Standings	Reality
It's Enrico Palazzo	Wu Tang Financial	Le Dupont Torkies
Wu Tang Financial	Aroids Anonymous	Aroids Anonymous
Unenviable Position	Recalcitrant Cobbler	Mission Accomplished
Evil League of Evil	fakeleague (Ang)	Recalcitrant Cobbler
Mission Accomplished	Le Dupont Torkies	Flaccid Funiculi
Recalcitrant Cobbler	The Loose Bowels	Wu Tang Financial
The Loose Bowels	The Spam Avengers	wormcheese etc.
wormcheese etc.	wormcheese etc.	Unenviable Position
The Spam Avengers	Jake!Wrong League (Scot)	Evil League of Evil
Flaccid Funiculi	Unenviable Position	The Spam Avengers
Le Dupont Torkies	Draft? (Will)	It’s Enrico Palazzo
Aroids Anonymous	It’s Enrico Palazzo	The Loose Bowels

Well, PECOTA did seem to come closer to the control group than it did to manager-affected reality, so maybe there's some value there after all. More interestingly, the gaps between the projections, control group, and reality give some interesting insights into who has done the best job as an owner this year (hint: not me). We'll cover that in a later post. But I'll tell you what: we should definitely make the Death Ship league an annual tradition so we can track this stuff.

Does Super Filly = Super Mom?

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:28:00 +0000

Four months ago, we questioned the hype that accompanied Rachel Alexandra, stating "her reputation is beyond her accomplishments at the moment." Four races later, including 3 victories over male horses and having beaten every single dirt horse of significance in America, Rachel Alexandra has established herself as one of the greatest female horses in American history. We hear the word "great" thrown around a lot with horses that are merely very good. This isn't the case with RA. She's truly an all-time great.

What isn't true, though is that this guarantees that her offspring will be fantastic. There's a lot of talk in the Interwebs that when she and 2007/2008 Horse of the Year Curlin mate, they will produce the next Pegasus. Take, for example, Billy Finley:

The next stop will be a farm somewhere in Kentucky and a date with Curlin. Want to get really ahead of ourselves? The foal should debut sometime during the 2013 meet at Saratoga before winning either the Spinaway or Hopeful.

Putting aside the fact his date is wrong (if she retires after 2010, as his article suggests, her first foal wouldn't hit the track until 2014), it's just wrong to think that because she's great, her foals will be great. If anything, history has proven the exact opposite. Let's take a look at how well the offspring of arguably the greatest fillies of the past 30 years have fared. We've excluded horses that died before they could breed (Go For Wand, Ruffian) and those that retired too recently to have much of a sample size (Azeri, Ashado). To make this manageable, we're only focusing on North American horses.

All Along--13 foals to race, none did anything.

Bayakoa--4 foals, none of which did anything.

Dance Smartly--This Canadien filly foaled 2 winners of the Queen's Plate and another stakes winner in 9 foals.

Genuine Risk--only successfully carried 2 foals to term, neither raced.

Heavenly Prize--9 foals to race, 2 of which were solid: Good Reward won a couple of Grade 1's on the turf and over a million dollars, while Pure Prize won almost half a million bucks. Neither horse was ever considered for an Eclipse Award, but both had their moments.

Life's Magic--14 foals, the only one who did anything was Simon Pure, who was in the money in a couple of stakes races.

Open Mind--2 foals, one of which did well in Japan.

Paseana--1 foal, who never raced.

Personal Ensign--The best of this group by a mile. She foaled My Flag, a multiple G1 winner and the 1995 BC Juvenile Fillies winner (who foaled multiple Grade 1 winner Storm Flag Flying); Miner's Mark, who won the JC Gold Cup and Traditionally, the winner of the Oaklawn Handicap. Additionally, she foaled Our Emblem, a consistent stakes horse (who sired 2002 Derby winner War Emblem) and a couple of other useful horses in Proud and True and Salute. And still, she had 3-4 foals who did little or nothing.

Princess Rooney--7 foals, one of which won over $100,000.

Serena's Song--9 foals to race with varying success. Grand Reward and Harlington earned money, but were never world beaters. Serena's Tune and Sophisticat were oddly managed and may have been better than they appeared on track.

Sky Beauty--7 foals, none of which did anything of note.

Winning Colors--10 foals to race, only two of which won over $100,000, and both of them did it in Japan, where the purses dwarf ours, making the comparison difficult.

From this group of leading ladies, we've got 96 foals, which have produced a total of 7 Grade 1 winners, i.e., a 7.3% batting average on being a very good horse. (It's probably notable that 4 of the G1 winners came from Heavenly Prize and Personal Ensign, which are regally bred fillies from the Phipps family.) At best, therefore, Rachel Alexandra is a 50/50 shot to produce a single Grade 1 winner, and there's a pretty good chance that her offspring will be anonymous. Remember, Serena's Song did great against the boys too, and hasn't produced anything that's contended for a title. What's to make us think that Rachel Alexandra is any different?

Transactions Analysis Part III: Bringing It All Back Home Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:50:00 +0000

Le Dupont Torkies

Obtained Aramis Ramirez (3b, CHC) from The Spam Avengers; traded away Ryan Zimmerman (3B, WAS) to same. [7/7]

Obtained Brandon Inge (C/3B, DET) and Michael Cuddyer (1B/OF) from wormcheese moosebird; traded away Denard Span (OF, MIN) and Matt Garza (SP, TB) to same [7/8]

Obtained Matt Holliday (OF, STL) from Aroids Anonymous; traded away Vlad Guerrero (OF, LAA) to same [7/30]

Obtained Adam Dunn (1B/OF, WAS) and Ryan Franklin (RP, STL) from wormcheese moosebird; traded away Chad Billingsley (SP, LAD) and Jon Broxton (RP, LAD) to same. [7/30]

Notable FA pickups: Julio Borbon (OF, TEX)
Notable FA cuts: Ryan Dempster (P, CHC), Billy Wagner (RP, BOS)

And so here we see a continuation on my season-long theory that effort = results in this league. Nobody else was as active in the trade market as the Torkies, and unsurprisingly they’re on top of the league as of this writing. The only note of caution is that they’re still on pace to cruise through the innings limit, but as of now they have the cushion to absorb that.

As for the trades themselves, three of the four were straightforward now-for-later moves, with useful pieces like Matt Garza, Ryan Zimmerman, and Chad Billingsley sacrificed to bring in win-now vets. The fourth trade, however, was a good old-fashioned barrel-fucking. Lines since the trade:

Matt Holliday: .380/28R/11HR/35RBI/1SB
Vlad Guerrero: .345/25R/9HR/19RBI/0SB

If you just voided that one trade, you’d see a 4.5-point swing between the Torkies and AA, such that AA would now be in second place with 95.5 points, only 3.5 points behind the Torkies in first. Instead, AA are in 3d and the Torkies are cantering home with another title. Crazy. (Teddy)

I note this below, but let's also bear in mind that Tucker's also traded some draft picks for next year, but when you're drafting last and have a good eye for non-crappy players, it matters little. I don't have much to add to Teddy's analysis except to somewhat belatedly marvel at the August 23-26 stretch where Tucker went from 4 points behind me to 11 1/2 points ahead. For that type of a rally to occur in August is unheard of, and I tip my hat to our probable repeat winner. (El Angelo)

Flaccid Funiculi

Obtained: Brandon Philips (2B, CIN) and Dexter Fowler (OF, COL) from Aroids Anonymous; traded away Jose Lopez (2B, SEA) to same [7/23].

Notable FA pickups: Francisco Liriano (SP, MIN), Drew Stubbs (OF, CIN)
Notable FA cuts: Dallas Braden (SP, OAK)

There was a notable lack of win-now moves for this team, with FF pretty much ceding the field to the Torkies, MA, and the Cobblers. The Brandon Philips/Jose Lopez trade was pretty much a wash, with Lopez slugging well and Philips providing more speed. That means the team gave up essentially nothing for Dexter Fowler, an intriguing guy whose floor looks to be Willy Taveras, a guy who has been plenty valuable in this league over the years. Nice trade; you wonder what might have been had the team pulled off one or two more like it. (Teddy)

Let's give Will a little more credit here: he fired a big bullet early by dealing a first-round pick away for Shane Victorino and Justin Verlander back in June, both of which have been solid contributors. What really seems to have happened it the Law of Large Numbers finally caught up to this squad, as it was top heavy with little depth on offense. One bad injury--which Carlos Beltran's was, if Will had the probable 15 HR's and 15 steals he would have provided, he would be in 2nd place--proved to be too much for the team to overcome. Lots of points for style, though, because it's great to see an owner try an unconventional style, stick with it, and make a great run at the title. You know, like our commish, only the exact opposite. (El Angelo)

Aroids Anonymous

Obtained: Lopez; traded away Philips and Fowler (OF, COL) [7/23].

Obtained Guerrero; traded away Holliday [7/30].

Obtained: Joe Nathan (RP, MIN) from wormcheese moosebird; traded away Curtis Granderson (OF, DET). [8/9]

Notable FA pickups: Scott Feldman (SP, TEX), Franklin Morales (temporary CL, COL)
Notable FA drops: A ton of young pitching, including Dan Bard, Dustin Nippert, Chris Volstad, et al.

I’ve pretty well spoiled a lot of this above, but suffice to say that one of these trades was catastrophic and another was more or less ineffectual. That said, the Joe Nathan/Curtis Granderson trade was good for both sides and helped AA defend critical points in the SV category. Even better were the two FA pickups highlighted above. It’s rare to add a 16-game winner and a decent closer to a fantasy roster in late August without giving up anything at all, but that’s what AA pulled off. (Teddy)

I'm a lot less harsh than my co-author on the Holliday trade, and am giving Corey much more benefit of the doubt. Let's remember at the time Corety made the Holliday trade, (1) his team was much further out of it than he is now (I'm not sure they had cracked the 80 point barrier by then), and (2) Holliday had been playing like shit for the A's. To top it off, Holliday is unkeepable for next year while Vladie is, and they picked up a late 2nd round pick in the exchange. It's a purely defensible move, which only seems worse because the Aroids didn't tank afterwards, they kept getting better. How much of that is a function of his team playing better versus the bottom half of the league cratering is debatable--the bottom 5 teams in this league have lost enough points from inertia and crappiness this year that it's likely that 85 points will only get you 5th place this year.

As for Scott Feldman, the fact that he has 16 wins is nothing shy of truly shocking. The guy has a K/BB ratio that's approaching 3/2, can't strike anyone out, and plays in a horrible park for pitchers. He is currently tied for first in AL Wins with CC Sabathia and Verlander, and is clearly the answer to "which doesn't belong and why" for that trio. In fact, I'll officially declare him the worst pitcher to contend for the win title since 1989, when Bleach Saberhagen lead the AL with 21 W's. That year's top 10 included Storm Davis (19 wins), Mike Moore (19), something called Jeff Ballard (18--he had 23 the rest of his career), the immortal Allan Anderson (17) and...wait for it...AL Rookie of the Year runner-up, Tom Gordon (17). Reading that officially made me feel old. (El Angelo)

Transactions Analysis Part II: Mini Mini Edition

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:34:00 +0000

Originally we were going to do two parts, but we finished three teams pretty quickly, relatively speaking. So why not break it down into a threesome? (El Angelo)

Ummm...gonna have to pass. Not a fan of the rotisserie. (Teddy)

Evil League of Evil

Signed Fat Squirrel, OF, Tampa Bay; Released Vernon Wells, OF, Toronto and Dan Meyer, RP, Florida (7/20)
Signed Scott Rolen, 3B, Toronto (7/21)
Signed Jim Johnson, RP, Baltimore (7/23)
Signed Mike Adams, RP, San Diego; Released Derek Holland, SP, Texas (7/30)
Released Adams; Signed Holland (8/2)
Released Scott Richmond, RP, Toronto (8/3)
Signed Elvis Andrus, SS, Texas (8/12)
Signed Chris Perez, RP, Cleveland; Released Nick Blackburn, RP, Minnesota and Rafael Furcal, SS, Los Angeles (8/27)
Claimed Joba Chamberlain, SP, New York (AL) off waivers; Released James Loney, 1B, Los Angeles (9/7)

A great quote from my partner in crime's discussion of this year's draft, after Raffy Furcal went tenth overall, screwing up his plans to get a top-flight shortstop:

I had a fallback plan for missing out on Rollins. After careful consideration of injury profiles, team offensive characteristics, and player aging curves, I concluded that Raffy Furcal was going to have an only slightly sub-Rollins year.

What's amazing is that he was dead on balls accurate. Here are the players' stats for this year:

Rollins: .289 OBP, 17 HR, 80 R, 60 RBI, 25 SB's
Raffy: .255 OBP, 7 HR, 71 R, 38 RBI, 6 SB's

So yes, Furcal's only been about 1 grade lower than Rollins. The problem is that Jimmy's a D and Raffy's an F. Oops. (El Angelo)

But JJ Hardy, the consensus next-best SS out there, and the guyI ended up getting, managed to get an A--three of them, in fact, as he was sent to AAA in July. The SS position just cut a swath through the league this year. Looking back, there were 3 SS taken in the first round of this year's draft: the two winners above, and #2 overall pick Jose Reyes, who whipped up a .355/2 HR/18 R/15 RBI/11 SB shitsicle before hitting the DL for the season.

In fact, let's look back at the entire first round--nearly half of us missed completely with our first round picks (2 teams had 2 first-round picks; I'm removing the extras for purposes of ths discussion):

1. Albert Pujols: Hit; best player in the world; team that took him is in 2d.
2. Jose Reyes: Fail; team never in contention.
3. Miguel Cabrera: Hit; team near the money all season.
4. Prince Fielder: Hit; team near the money all season.
5. Jimmy Rollins: Fail; team's entire season pretty much an abortion.
6. Alfonso Soriano: Fail; at least I had the good sense to be worried about the pick at the time.
7. Josh Beckett: Fine; maybe the only non boom/bust pick in round 1.
8. Carl Crawford: Hit; team near the money all season.
10. Raffy Furcal: Fail; team cratered for first time since joining league.
12. David Ortiz: Fail; team still good as the Torkies continue to defy all predictive norms.

Five out of ten guys failed with their first pick, and that failure pretty well blew us out of contention. In fact, it looks like for all our fancy analysis here, all you really have to do to be in contention in this league is hit your first-round pick for a given season. Or, alternatively, be Tucker.

Unenviable Position

Signed Franklin Guiterrez, OF, Cleveland; Released Jason Varitek, C, Boston (7/8)
Signed Billy Butler, 1B, Kansas City; Released Scott Rolen, 3B, Cincy (7/18)
Signed Adam LaRoche, 1B, Atlanta; Released Troy Percival, RP, Tampa (7/25)
Released LaRoche and Glen Perkins, SP, Minnesota; Claimed Michael Saunders, OF, Seattle off waivers (7/29)
Released Saunders; Signed Carlos Gonzalez, OF, Colorado (8/19)
Signed Johan Santana, SP, Weill Cornell Medical Center; Released Luke Hochevar, SP, Kansas City (8/31)

Sound and noise aside, there's one great pickup here: Carlos Gonzalez, a great waiver wire snag for a team whose outfield is second outfielder is Milton F'ing Bradley. Gonzalez is a likely keeper and potentially a good player to have on the squad for the next 3 years. What more can you ask out of an August pickup? Great job Teddy. Because Michael Saunders was not the answer, much like every other player on this list. (El Angelo)

Yep, pleased with the Gonzo pickup. Between him and Johan, I'll be very interested to see how the '10 projections come out ths winter. (Teddy)

Recalcitrant Cobbler

Traded Corey Hart, OF, Milwaukee to It's Enrico Palazzo for Kerry Wood, RP, Cleveland (8/5)
Notably added: Andy Pettite, SP, New York (AL) (2x); Garrett Jones, OF, Pittsburgh; Billy Wagner, RP, Boston
Notably dropped: Joba Chamberlain, SP, New York (AL); Francisco Liriano, SP, Minnesota
Actually had on his roster for 26 hours: Carl The Truth Pavano, SP, Cleveland

For the record, there were 37 transaction lines for this team for this time period. However, many of them included adding and dropping the likes of Alfredo Aceves, John Lannannannann and a guy from Alabama, none of which I can get too worked up about. Regarding the players above, as I noted last week, I endorse dumping Hart, who's overrated and fairly replaceable. Now yes, the Kerry Wood experiment has had mixed results so far, but given that closers are overvalued in the league draft, it's a fine gamble to add a saves earner for this year and not have to waste a 3rd round pick on next year's CJ Wilson.

As for the the other transactions, I can't figure out which I'm more confused about, the decision to drop Joba Chamberlain, who wasn't worthless, or the choice to have Carl Pavano on the roster when a bar bet wasn't involved. I suppose the rationale is that the Joba Rules meant that he was getting de minimus good innings out of everyone's favorite Nebraskan this year, and he's not worth keeping at +1, but I'm not sure I agree with the latter. If the boy learns how to stop walking people, and he's a good postseason away from being someone you could suck Sahil into trading for. Besides, it's not like they needed the roster spot--it was converted into the ageless Andy Pettite. Why even bother? (El Angelo)

That's a big-time Go For It move there. Points for chutzpah, I guess, though I share your wonderment at the ditching of an asset. Feels like somebody would have given up something for him. (Teddy)

Transactions Analysis, Part I: Layoff Edition

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:05:00 +0000

It's been a month since we turned our gaze to a full-blown analysis of the partially because of vacation plans, and partially because the two authors both now have steady, gainful employment that actually requires their attention between business hours. So let's address the silly, mundane and occasionally productive in a two part TA. Might be lighter on the jokes, but quite quite heavy on the transactions. (El Angelo)

Eat, eat, ya f#cking jackals. (Teddy)

It's Enrico Palazzo

Traded Kerry Wood, RP, Cleveland to Recalcitrant Cobbler for Corey Hart, OF, Milwaukee (8/5)

Months of picking on Andrew for being dead have resulted in him resurfacing out of nowhere to make a trade for a broken outfielder. Now granted, I think cashing in on Kerry Wood is not a bad move, because his entire value is in the most artificial of categories that a bottom feeding team doesn't need (saves) and he's eminently replaceable. He hasn't pitched well this year, and is one bad throw away from Draveckying his arm. So getting something for him was good. But Corey Hart? A little known fact is that Hart is overrated. Yes he's billed as a perennial 20-20 guy, but he doesn't walk, doesn't actually score or knock in a lot of runs, and is out for the foreseeable future with a stapled gut. He's a clear step below the likes of Matt Kemp and Curtis Granderson, and is probably a 3rd outfielder and a borderline keeper. So while I can't knock the trade in general, I have to ask whether this was really the best they could do for a middling closer, because multiple guys in contention need saves. (El Angelo)

These kind of trades are always tough to measure, because you have to balance the calculations Ang goes over against the cost of getting stuck with Wood for nothing. All of the Milwaukee supporting players regressed this year; to the extent that you still believe in them as a team, Hart has value as part of a potentially strong offense. If not, well, see above. (Teddy)

Wu Tang Financial

Signed Joe Blanton, SP, Philly; Released Kevin Correia, SP, San Diego (7/11)
Signed Josh Willingham, OF, Washington; Released Adam LaRoche, 1B, Multiple Teams (7/12)
Signed Howie Kendrick, 2B, Anaheim; Released Blanton and Mike Lowell, Nutless Wonder, Boston (7/18)
Signed Mark Teabag, 3B, Kansas City (7/24)
Released Alberto Callaspo, MI, Kansas City (8/13)
Released Teabag (8/18)

I have a healthy appreciation for being the owner of a team that's clearly not in the running for money this year and the then-inherent difficulty in managing a roster to build for the next year. Which is why these moves strike me as the definition of pointless. Are a single one of these players keepable on the most shallow of rosters? Hell, do any of them have upside? I mean, what's the purpose of bothering with Joe Blanton, to see if having him scores you free tickets to Kentucky basketball games? I'm befuddled, especially because this squad has a very tradeable chip (Lance Berkman) it should be actively shopping. (El Angelo)

Eh, there's something to be said for trying to improve your team even if you're out of it. Those red numbers get hard to look at every morning. Plus, as will become clear as we move through this, there hasn't been much in the way of sneaky keeper guys out there on the wire this year. (Teddy)

Mission Accomplished

Signed Alcaides Escobar, SS, Milwaukee, Released Ramon Ramirez, SS, Boston (7/7)
Released Edwin Encarnacion, 3B, Cincy (7/9)
Traded Nick Swisher, 1B, New York [AL] and Max Scherzer, SP, Arizona to wormcheese mousebird for Michael Bourn, OF, Houston (7/25)
Signed Mike Adams, RP, San Diego (8/10)
Released Adams, Signed Jeff Clement, C, Pittsburgh (8/11)
Signed Juan Rivera, OF, Anaheim (8/17)
Signed Jim Thome, Util, Los Angeles; Released Johan St. Johan, SP, New York (NL) (8/28)
Released Clement & Thome; Signed Sean Rodriguez, 2B, Tampa Bay (9/1)

De minimus crap, which is really saying something because it's my own team. I was happy to pick up Michael Bourn for a pitcher I really didn't need, and think Escobar and Rodriguez are interesting flyers for 2010. The problem is my middle infield's collapsed enough that they might have to play roles down the stretch this year. Gulp. (El Angelo)

You're lucky that this got delayed an extra couple of days, because I had my foot all the way back ready to kick you on the decision to pickup Jim Thome immediately following his move to become the world's oldest and fattest pinch hitter in LA. Also, although I agree with the trade from your perspective, since you're in the mode of targeting specific scoring categories, note that Nick Swisher is above the aforementioned Lance Berkman in the 1B rankings this year. (Teddy)

The Spam Avengers

Traded Aramis Ramirez., 3B, Chicago [NL] and their 4th round pick to Le Dupont Torkies for Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington and their 3rd round pick (7/8)
Signed Lastings Milledge, OF, Pittsburgh; Released Andrew Miller, SP, Florida (8/6)

I love the draft pick swap that's part of this trade. There's a realistic chance Alex will finish in last and Tucker in first, meaning Alex will move up exactly one pick. What a coup. In their next trade, they should include an exchange of Ding Dongs. (El Angelo)

I love that Lastings Milledge is in a position to break yet another heart in this league. He's like a combination of Amber Heard and chlamydia. (Teddy)

wormcheese mousebird

Traded Brandon Inge, C, Detroit and Mike Cuddyer, 1B, Minnesota for Denard Span, OF, Minnesota and Matt Garza, SP, Tampa Bay (7/9)
Traded Michael Bourn, OF, Houston to Mission Accomplished for Max Scherzer, SP, Arizona and Nick Swisher, 1B, New York (AL) (7/25)
Traded Adam Dunn, OF, Washington and Ryan Franklin, RP, St. Louis and his 7th round pick to Le Dupont Torkies for Chad Billingsley, SP, Los Angeles and Jonathan Broxton, RP, Los Angeles and his 3rd and 5th round picks (7/30)
Traded Joe Nathan, RP, Minnesota to Aroids Anonymous for Curtis Granderson, OF, Detroit and his 5th round pick (8/9)
Notably added Cody Ross, OF, Florida
Notably dropped Cameron Maybin, OF, Florida; Chris Young, OF, Arizona; Alex Gordon, 3B, Kansas City, Juan Rivera, OF, Anaheim and Travis Hafner, 1B, Cleveland

There's a lot of player movement here, and by and large, I like it. Given that Joe Nathan was going to occupy three slots next year (as a closer), Bourn, Cuddyer and Inge are not keepers and Ryan Franklin smacks of fluke year closer, meaning the only real player they're losing is Adam Dunn. In return they get 2 stud pitchers (Billingsley & Garza), a flyer starter (Scherzer), a good closer (Broxton), and a nice 3rd outfielder (Granderson). They're a good draft away from being dangerous next year, which got easier by adding 4 picks. Outside of the odd release of Maybin, nice work. (El Angelo)

This team appears to have buckled down and learned some valuable lessons about cheesegetting from its mouseworm. In fact, you can make a case that the second-half GM award goes to the earlycheeses. They've managed to reshuffle their roster and set themselves up for next year while improving several spots in this year's standings. While there's a better-than-average chance that they'll blow it by drafting Esix Snead in round 2 next year, they can be proud of the past few months. (Teddy)

The Loose Bowels

Signed Yadir Molina, C, St. Louis; Released Jake Fox, SP, Chicago (NL) (7/9)
Wasted everyone's time with Elvis Andrus, SS, Texas, Derek Lowe Face, SP, Atlanta and Brian Matusz, SP, Baltimore (multiple times)
Released Edinson Volquez, SP, Cincy (8/3)
Signed Brett Cecil, SP, Toronto and Tom Gorzellany, SP, Pittsburgh; Released Molina and Cody Ross, OF, Florida (8/5)
Signed Mike Cuddyer, OF, Minnesota; Released Josh Outman, SP, Oakland and Rickie Weeks, 2B, Milwaukee (8/10)
Signed Trent Oeltjen, OF, Arizona (8/15)
Released Oeitjen and Cecil; Signed Signed Kyle Blanks, 1B, San Diego and John Smoltz, SP, St. Louis (8/23)

As someone who spent the past two years in the fantasy cellar, I fully understand and appreciate what our Beloved Commisioner is going through here. His season's in the shitter. He has caught absolutely zero breaks. He's staring at a top-2 pick next year with the option of taking either David Wright's broken skull or Johan Santana's elbow chips. So it's natural to grasp at straws, see what's available, and who knows, maybe you'll net a keeper for the next year from the proverbial scrap heap. It's happened before, and might happen again.

That's all fine and reasonable. SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PICKING UP JOHN SMOLTZ???!?? (El Angelo)

Yes, all true. Though I'm more intrigued by the Trent Oeltjen move. I, like all fantasy gurus, adhere rigorously to the philosophy that it's vitally important to keep at least one 26 year-old Australian on your roster at all times. However, in the past I've only ever applied that belief to fantasy cricket leagues. It never occurred to me to incorporate that bit of obvious wisdom into baseball leagues. That the commish chose to do so specifically by calling up a 26 y/o Australian with zero MLB at-bats before this year only cements his genius. (Teddy)

Race Preview: The 2009 Travers

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:34:00 +0000

While the Kentucky Derby is the most famous and prestigious race and the Belmont is the Test of Champions, the real race for determining the champion three year old colt is, somewhat surprisingly, the Preakness. Twelve of the last 13 horses to win the Preakness won the Eclipse Award for the champion 3 year old colt. The exception--Red Bullet in 2000--was a sensible exception, because that was the only graded stakes race he won that year (he was injured after the race). That year's champion was Tiznow, who didn't even race in the Triple Crown, and usurped Fusaichi Pegasus for the crown by thrashing him in the Breeders Cup Classic.

So what does this have to do with this year's Travers? Well, this year will be the second time since Louis Quatorze won the Preakness in 1996 that the Preakness winner won't be crowned the champion 3yo colt, since the winner, Rachel Alexandra, is obviously ineligible for the award. Given that no 3yo colts has won more than one Grade 1 race this year, there has to be extra emphasis on the Travers, especially because it matches up a couple of horses with great potential, a classic winner, and a late bloomer. (Sadly, Mine That Bird had to be withdrawn because he hasn't recovered from last week's epiglottis surgery.)

Let's do our normal countdown for this year's Travers. It'll be brief--there are only seven horses running. For the record, while we like some horses better than others, for a change, we have a field where every horse belongs, and there isn't a single entrant that would be a shocker to hit the board.

We Look Like Outsiders

7. Our Edge. While Nick Zito did win this race five years ago with Birdstone, that was with a horse who was already a classic winner and had a graded stakes win at Saratoga. This guy's a front-running, stretching out sprinter whose best race came against absolutely nobody in Delaware Park. He'd be an intriguing entrant in the King's Bishop on the undercard, but looks like pace fodder here.

6. Hold Me Back. If you squint enough, you can make a case for this horse winning--good breeding, great connections, and really only 0-for-1 on a fast dirt track. Heck, we may use him in our multi-race bets at 20-1 or so. But when Bill Mott tells you he's taking a shot for kicks, you're supposed to nod appreciatively and move on.

Be Very, Very Careful

5. Charitable Man. This guy got a ton of hype for winning the Peter Pan (without meriting any), and backed it up by running like crap in the Belmont. Now he comes in off a good-on-paper 3rd in the Jim Dandy, that upon examination, was utterly bland and far inferior to the two in front of him. Why should you take 9-2 on him here when he's done nothing to earn it?

4. Kensei. This guy won us a good chunk of change on Belmont day when he ran third at 30-1 in the Woody Stephens. He's followed that up with two pretty nice wins in the Dwyer and Jim Dandy, but in both cases, he won without being particularly impressive, and looks solid more than spectacular. Definitely has a chance, but looks like he might be a horse that's already peaked and isn't really Grade I material.

3. Quality Road. We won't dispute that he's probably the most talented horse in the race, as he's set two track records and has 4 three-digit Gowanus Speed Figures. His only loss was in a race where he wasn't 100% healthy. So what's the problem? We're not sure he's ready for this spot. His prep off a 4 month layoff was a 6 1/2 furlong sprint that he won easily. Now he's stretching out 3 1/2 furlongs to go a mile and a quarter, which he's not really bred for, an has to contend with a fair amount of early speed. He could romp, but at 7-5, we're looking elsewhere.

The Key Contender

2. Summer Bird. The Belmont winner comes into this race much the same way he came into the Belmont, off a so-so performance in the slop where he didn't get a chance to fire his best shot. This is the 6th race of his career, and he's perfectly bred for the distance. He's clearly one of the better colts in this class, the question is whether or not he rises to the challenge and takes the definitive lead for the Eclipse Award. We say he just falls short to an up and comer.

The Upset Winner

1. Warrior's Reward. While everyone is quick to note that Quality Road has multiple 100+ GSF's, this guy actually is tied with Quality Road for the highest figure in the field. The reason we like him is two fold. First, his last two races were both good under poor circumstances--he missed the break in the Dwyer and rallied stoutly for a good third, and was contesting the pace in the Jim Dandy, and wilted late. We think he'll get a better trip under Calvin Borel this time, sitting just off the pace. Second, we like Borel, and we especially like that had he been forced to choose between this horse and the Kentucky Derby winner, he was picking Warrior's Reward. This is the other horse with huge upside in the race, and we think he puts it all together on Saturday. Which, of course, will just further muddle the Eclipse Award question.

As for the strong undercard on Travers day, we like Sky Haven to pull off a small upset in the Victory Ride, Captain's Lover in the Ballston Spa (if it stays on the grass), Munnings in the Kings Bishop, and Informed Decision in the Ballerina. Good luck to all!

(And for those looking for TA, probably tomorrow.)

Sleeper Horse of the Year Candidate?

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:26:00 +0000

We're about 60% of the way through the meaningful horse racing season, and there are exactly three candidates for Horse of the Year. Barring something less foreseeable than Mine That Bird's Derby win, there are no other potential HOTY candidates. Who's in the running?

1. Rachel Alexandra. The prohibitive favorite at this juncture, she's 7-for-7 this year, has won four straight G1's, and has a pair of wins over the boys in the Preakness and Haskell. She's legitimately 1-5 to win HOTY, and looks like she's the best filly since Personal Ensign.

2. Zenyatta. She's done nothing wrong with year with three wins this year, two G1's, and is still undefeated in her career. The problem is that she's done nothing exciting by staying on the West Coast and appears to be ducking Rachel Alexandra. She has no shot to win this award without shipping east to face RA, which seems unlikely. If she changes her mind, ships, and beats RA, then she's got a shot.

3. Gio Ponti. The horse that no casual fan has heard of, and the real sleeper member of this trio. He's the only horse besides RA this year to win 4 Grade 1's, with wins in 4 turf stakes from 1 mile to 1 3/8 miles. He won the Arlington Million in fantastic fashion on Saturday, and looks to be legitimately one of the best turf horses we've had in a while.

Still, a male turf horse has no real shot against RA for HOTY. Unless...he ventures a little outside of his comfort zone and goes for the Breeders Cup Classic. Ridiculous? Not at all--the race is being run on synthetics this year, and as we saw last year with Raven's Pass, turf horses often like synthetic surfaces. Heck, his breeding even indicates that he'd like non-dirt surfaces.

So let's say he caps off his year by winning another G1 turf race and then the Breeders Cup Classic. Is that enough to take down RA? Depends. If she falters in her last few starts, then maybe it's worthy of consideration. If she does something else ridiculous such as winning the Travers or the Woodward, however, she can retire, make the Hall of Fame and wrap up HOTY before Labor Day. Which frankly, would be amazing.

Mid-Season Accountability Review

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:35:00 +0000

The year 2009 has not been a strong one for predictions for the authors of the GRBG. We thought that Mine That Bird had no shot in the Derby, that the US was going to get waxed in the Confederations Cup, and that Zach Duke would implode. With that in mind, let's take the All-Star break to review our predictions, see what's gone right/wrong so far for the teams in the league, and consider forecasting what the second half has in store. Warning: our predictions, it turns out, makes our Derby prognostications look savvy. (El Angelo)

The 2009 PECOTA predictions have been the greatest spreadsheet-related disaster since Bernie Madoff first pirated a copy of MS Office 95. If we had any intellectual integrity, we'd shut down the blog. Luckily, we in fact don't have any intellectual integrity, so off we go. (Teddy)

12. The Spam Avengers (predicted: 9th)

Key quote from preview: "It's a good-not-great roster with a lot of pratfalls."--El Angelo

For starters, I'll note that somehow the 6 teams I previewed are currently in 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 12th. I leave it up to the reader to guess whether that's a curse or coincidence.

At any rate, the prediction has been kinda-sorta true, but this team has been markedly worse than I expected. What happened? Well, Jimmy Rollins has been a colossal stiff when not playing the Mets, and the bounty from the Drew/Upton-Milledge/Votto swap hasn't quite panned out: Lastings never made it back to the majors, and Votto missed a month with anxiety disorder. Throwing away that much firepower seems like too much to overcome. (El Angelo)

A team picking that high in the draft can't afford to eat its first round pick. Throw in a double miss on Votto and Milledge and it's crash city. That said, PECOTA actually got the neighborhood right for TSA--this far down things like managerial indifference start to swamp the data no matter how you pick 'em. (Teddy)

11. It's Enrico Palazzo (predicted: 1st)

Key quote from preview: "This perennial contender is a player or two shy of the top this year."--El Angelo

Perennial contender and PECOTA's pick goes to shit. What the hell happened? Three things. First, this team's pitching has utterly collapsed. For the last two years, this team has succeeded because of its arms, not its bats. Here's a chart showing their points earned in years past:

Yr	W	Sv	K	ERA	WHIP	Tot
07	11	7.5	11	12	12	53.5
08	7.5	7	12	11	12	49.5
09	6.5	1	1	1	5.5	15.0

Second, the hitting that was passable in years past has not been a strength at all, thanks to some killer performances and injuries from the infield. Russell Martin and Dan Uggla have gone from huge strengths at weak positions to just plain ol' shitty. When Carlos Delgado went down for an extended period, the team's hitting demise was set (to say nothing of Raul Ibanez's new injury).

Third, the owner appears to have taken the year off. While I can't say I blame him when the team is this poor, it's possibly the key difference between 11th and, say, 6th. Though given the top-heavy nature of next year's draft class, it's probably the smart move. (El Angelo)

SP-heavy teams are subject to collapse without warning, but this is ridiculous. Next year, rather than post the projected PECOTA winner we'll just send that owner a dead black cat in the mail and get it over with. I will say that the above chart points out the extent to which RPs influence the rate stats--it's nota coincidence that the team's collapse in SV gone along with a collapse in ERA and WHIP. (Teddy)

10. The Loose Bowels (predicted: 7th)

Key quote from preview: "The league's most average team."--Teddy

Turns out that was optimistic. How do you know you're having a rebuilding year? When your outfield consists of Colby, Cody and Ryan. Collecting women and Irish guys will not lead you to greatness. (El Angelo)

Those are the names of either a Little League outfield from San Dimas or a family of golden retrievers. (Teddy) Again, though, the PECOTA predictions saw a mash-up from 10th to around 6th, so the prediction was pretty much on the mark once you factor in trades. (Teddy)

9. wormcheese mousebird (predicted: 8th)

Key quote from preview: "If they can dig up some starters during the year that push them towards respectability, this team may be able to be middle of the pack; otherwise, it's a push for 2010."--El Angelo

This roster is really odd. They're doing fine in saves, runs, steals and OBP, and suck at everything else. Though for most of the year, their entire strength has been 3 closers, a couple of speedsters, and a guy in Petco Park. Looks like a push for 2010 is in order. (El Angelo)

Yep, those couple of starters never materialized. The power numbers should go up a touch over the rest of the year with Adam Dunn on board, though some of the SV might get flogged off as well. The upshot is that this team feels about right at this level, as PECOTA shockingly predicted. (Teddy)

8. Unenviable Position (predicted: 3rd)

Key quote from preview: "a smartly constructed roster with some minor flaws in the infield, and some health and development question marks on offense in general."--El Angelo

To do well in fantasy sports, you need not only for your players to do well, you need some of them to do above and beyond what's expected. Go to this team's roster and find a single player that's having a great year other than Ryan Braun, who's an established stud. I'll wait. (El Angelo)

Well, Mark Reynolds, honestly. But I've been killed by a succession of events that were independently predictable, but collectively extremely unlikely. Four pitchers (Ervin Santana, Wifey McBeater, Anibal Sanchez, and Troy Percival) have essentially been out for the duration, and my OF, projected by PECOTA as a source of strength, has cratered with Milton Bradley exploding, Alfonso Soriano imploding, and Eljiah Dukes, I dunno, deploding? Is that a word? It's my second perfect storm of suck in four years and honestly, I'm gettig sick of it. (Teddy)

7. Evil League of Evil (predicted: 4th)

Key quote from preview: "Here's my pick as the preseason favorite."-El Angelo

From what I can tell, this is pretty much attributable to bad luck, a couple of injuries, and drafting at the back of the pack for 4 straight years finally mattering. (El Angelo)

We didn't really factor in the bundle of joy which (understandably and correctly) distracted ELoE at the beginning of the season when he faced some injury and underperformance issues that he might otherwise have managed his way out of. By the time he came to it was fire sale time. (Teddy)

6. Wu Tang Financial (predicted: 2nd)

Key quote from preview: "This franchise has been only slightly easier to fuck than Iola Morton."--Teddy

Wait, you're saying that's out of context? Fine.

Actual key quote from preview: "We're a little more skeptical, though even we have to admit that the roster here looks talented and durable enough to make trouble."--Teddy

Random prediction: this team will still compete this year, barring them intentionally reversing course and trading off assets. I'm not saying for the top spot, but I think they're the 4th best squad in the league. (El Angelo)

Yeah, a little more rise wouldn't stun me either. They won't get that board spot, but they're a first division squad. PECOTA gets a little more time here. (Teddy)

5. Aroids Anonymous (predicted: 12th)

Key quote from preview:"They should be, at worst, mid-pack competitive most of the year."--El Angelo

Unlike Teddy, this is roughly where I thought these guys would be, but that's mostly because I had a lot more faith in Carl Crawford than my partner. Though the fact this team's competitive despite getting nothing out of Matt Holliday is impressive. (El Angelo)

Here is where PECOTA just starts crapping all over itself. I admit to having shared PECOTA's skepticism on Crawford; not much to say there other than I'm an idiot. The largely unforeseen overperformance of the Toronto pitching staff has also helped. But for a team that has made no major trades to go from a prediction of DAFL to a board-challenging performance is both impressive and a testament to the human frailties of Nate Silver.

4. Recalcitrant Cobbler (predicted: 6th)

Key quote from preview: "Probably not going to hit the board, but certainly one to watch."--Teddy

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. (El Angelo)

Woot! (Teddy)

3. Mission Accomplished (predicted: 4th)

Key quote from preview: "Even with the issues at closer, this team has enough firepower and upside to keep the owner in the top half of the league, and focused on this year instead of some amorphous future horizon."--Teddy

I'm a bit surprised how well this team has done this year--I had been shooting for a 5th-7th place finish. This is all attributable to Albert Pujols turning into a modern day Ted Williams; if you replaced him with Mark Teixeira, my team would have, without exaggeration, 11 fewer points. Now that I've added 3 closers for the stretch run...I'm not saying I can win, but I like my chances to stay competitive, barring a horrible injury. (El Angelo)

Yeah, everyone got this team right so far, though the massive post-trade transformation of the roster pretty much invalidates the old projection going forward. It sure seems like this team will stick around, though I honestly expected it to be a little farther up in the standings by now, so maybe I'm overrating it post-trade. (Teddy)

2. Flaccid Funiculi (predicted: 10th)

Key quote from preview: " This sure looks like a rebuilding campaign, and should be marked by a ton of activity in the trade market."--Teddy

Here's what I wrote about Will's team in our 2007 mid-season review:

I have given up trying to make sense of Gaynor's teams. I thought they would be good two years ago, and they sucked. I thought they weren't any good last year, and they were good. I thought they'd be near me this year, and they're doing great. In an effort to not kill his chances in the second half of the year, I'll just demur.

I stand by it this year, because as I noted in the comment section on this team's preview, in the past, we have misunderestimated Will's teams. (El Angelo)

Yeah, honestly, I fucking punt here. Edwin Jackson my ass. (Teddy)

1. Le Dupont Torkies (predicted: 11th)

Key quote from preview: "They should be in the mix, but will have to drive the hell out this team to get back into the money again this year."--Teddy

Putting aside PECOTA's horrible blunder, Teddy's preseason words were quite fortuitous. Our defending champ has done a masterful job in the first half of this season, riding a roster without a lot of superstars (are there any here besides Chase Utley?) and withstanding the losses of A-Rod and Joe Mauer to still be atop the league. Making it possible are some great performances on the pitching side, as this team has 52 pitching points (60 is the max possible).

Can this continue? There's not much room for improvement in the pitching side, but there is some room for improvement on the hitting side. There's also a chance to lose ground in hitting too; they could easily be passed in R's and HR's and sacrifice a few points, despite making some savvy trades this month. My guess? They finish the season in 89-91 point range, basically daring anyone else in the league to beat them. Good luck to all. (El Angelo)

I at least knew enough to question PECOTA here based on history. And while we're here, a note on manager involvement: the current top three in the league standings are all in the top four in pitchers' IP. Can't win from the bench. (Teddy)

Transactions Analysis: Independence Day Edition

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:40:00 +0000

A recent re-watching of the seminal Jeff Goldblum/Robert Loggia vehicle “Independence Day” has inflamed our patriotic spirit. The movie makes an important point about the resilience of the human spirit: nothing, not an alien invasion, not the acting of Judd Hirsch, not even the specter of a free world governed by Bill Pullman, can prevent computer hackers from saving us all. Accordingly, today’s TA pays tribute to Independence Day by re-familiarizing us all with some of the film’s many timeless lines of dialogue. Welcome to Earth. (Teddy)

"Independence Day" has secretly been an absolute favorite of mine for just how over the top and awful it is, which means this TA will probably spend more time ruminating on this crapfest than on this edition's not-any-good transactions. And my co-author is feeding right into my love by calling the flick a "Robert Loggia vehicle." Well stated. Robert Loggia is one of my favorite actors, mostly because he is always growling and like Gene Hackman, was born middle-aged. In other news, Mr. Loggia's house is currently on the market for just under $3.3 million. Am I the only one that thinks this looks like Jack Woltz's estate? (El Angelo)

The Loose Bowels

Signed Hideki Matsui, OF, New York (AL) [6/17]
Signed Rickie Weeks, 2B, Milwaukee, Chris Coghlan, Alkie, Cocktail and Kyle Blanks, 1B, San Diego; Released Matsui, Adam Kennedy, 2B, St. Louis, and Carlos Gonzalez, OF, Colorado; Fucked around with Joe Blanton, SP, Philadelphia [6/20]
Released Blanks; Signed Jake Fox, OF, Chicago [6/27]

Julius Levinson: David. What the hell are you doing?

David Levinson: Making a mess!

Julius Levinson: Yes, this I can see.

The only logical conclusion to draw from the Ricky Weeks pickup is the TLB is considering keeping him next year. There’s a chance that would be a brilliant move, but I wouldn’t characterize it as a good chance. It’s also unclear what three days of Hideki Matsui was supposed to do for the club, other than maybe help re-stock the clubhouse’s porn collection. (Teddy)

If he's planning on keeping Rickie Weeks for next year, he should know that Weeks not only hasn't been that good this year, but was the 2008 recipieint of the Worst Keeper Award. I didn't think it was possible for someone to win that award twice, but our commish appears ready to give it a go. The biggest problem here is that the best player on the list is Carlos Gonzalez, who was cut. (El Angelo)

The Spam Avengers

Signed Homer Bailey, SP, Cincy; Released Billy Butler, 1B, Kansas City [6/23]

David Levinson: [quietly] Time's up.

Billy Butler really is going to put it together at some point, though it’s now looking like a put-together Butler is going to look an awful lot like a peak-era Matt Stairs. In other words, a guy you’d be thrilled to grab in round 6 of the draft, but not a guy you’d be psyched to see on your keeper list. (Teddy)

You could say the same about Homer Bailey: he's more likely to be the next Eric Milton (i.e., useful starter) than an actual stud. Which for a team in last place is probably a waste of time. (El Angelo)

Le Dupont Torkies

Signed Brett Gardner, OF, New York (AL); Released Oliver! Perez, SP, Tidewater [6/24]
Released Gardner [6/26]
Signed Garrett Atkins, 3B, Colorado and John Maine, SP, New York (NL); Released Antonio Bastardo, SP, Philadelphia [6/27]
Released Atkins; called up Tommy Hanson from prospect list.

President Thomas Whitmore: We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive!

Despite plenty of deals piling up behind them, the Torkies soldier on atop the league. That said, it’s tough to see how any of these moves will really tip the balance of power with the possible exception of the Hanson activation. Rookie starters tend not to make great second half pickups, but Hanson has talent to spare and should be valuable as another of the Torkies stable of spot starters. (Teddy)

Hanson's actually more useful as trade chit for this team, because the last thing they need is more starting pitching. It wouldn't shock me at all to see them try to flip him and someone else useful for bopper, unless they actually think the Ben Zobrist experience is something that's never going to end.

Given that there's not much else to comment on with this team, let's instead ask what movie constituted Bill Pullman's most meaningful work, because certainly, it wasn't his over-the-top and not at all believable work as the President here. Since we can't give Sleepless in Seattle any credence on this blog, Casper was nearly career-ending, and about 5 people saw Bottle Shock, let's instead narrow it down to three roles:

1. Lone Starr in Spaceballs. Iconic work, though he was something of the straight man in this comic gem. Still, the line "Princess, you are ugly when you get angry!" never gets old.

2. Dr. Jeffrey Jamison in Singles. His role was pretty benign; however, my appreciate for this move elevates it to about a 7/10.

3. Andy Safian in Malice. One of the all-time underrated nonsensical but thoroughly entertaining movies (one of the few where there's a serial killer as a subplot only), he plays the befuddled man surrounded by idiocy, including Alec Baldwin being the World's Great Surgeon. Personally, this is my pick, even though Baldwin's "I am God" speech makes the movie. (And the Sniper Killer.)

What say ye? Poll's open on the top left, and we're taking comments below. (El Angelo)

Flaccid Funiculi

Signed Tim Wakefield, SP, Boston [6/17]
Signed Jeremy Accardo, SP, Toronto; Released John Maine, SP, New York (NL) [6/19]
Released Accardo, signed Brett Gardner (OF, NYY) [6/29]
Signed Chad Gaudin (P, SD); released Randy Wolf (SP, LAD) [7/1]
Released Gardner, signed Jose Lopez (2B, SEA)

Capt. Jimmy Wilder: [impersonating Rev. Jesse Jackson] Why we are on this particular mission, we'll never know. But I do know, here today, that the Black Knights will emerge victorious once again.

Our other leading candidate for the top spot, FF spent most of the last month on the starting pitcher treadmill, trying to find hot hands and good matchups. But he might have been too active—FF is on pace to blow through the innings limit by a whopping 50IP, meaning his staff’s counting stats are a bit of a mirage right now. Some fancy footwork will be required down the stretch, assuming that the chasing group of teams don’t go away. (Teddy)

What's really going to make or break this team's outcome isn't these pitchers, it's whether or not Carlos Beltran gets healthy in time and they can keep wringing productive work out of Shin-Shoo Choo and Jose Lopez. I would bet "no" on all three of those, but I have been wrong before. (El Angelo)

Aroids Anonymous

Signed Brandon League, RP, Toronto [6/17]
Released League; Signed Shawn Marcum, SP, Toronto [6/25]
Signed Everth Cabrera (SS, SD); released Chris Volstad [7/6]

David Levinson: Must go faster.

AA is Exhibit #1,563 in the season’s utter discrediting of PECOTA, and to their credit they’ve realized they’re in with a chance and have been good about trying to patch the holes in their staff (i.e. the staff of the Toronto Blue Jays) as they crop up. There’s still a long way to go, but AA also haven’t fired any huge trade bullets yet, so they might have another gear left.

Also, who the sainted funk is Everth Cabrera? (Teddy)

According to his profile, Everth Cabrera is a shortstop for the Padres originally from Nandaime. Since that really didn't answer any questions, I had to google Nandaime to learn it's a municipality in Nicaragua whose patron saints are St. Anne and San Joaquin. We can only hope this means that we have finally found the home town of everyone's favorite Cardinal, Joaquin Andjuar. (El Angelo)

Evil League of Evil

Released Latroy Hawkins, RP, Houston [6/20]
Signed BJ Ryan (RP, TOR) and Vernon Wells (OF, TOR); released Juan Pierre (Lottery Winner, LAD) [7/5]
Acquired via trade Kenshin Kawakami (SP, ATL) and 6th round pick of Recalcitrant Cobblers; traded away Randy Johnson (SP, DL); released May Gamel (3B, MIL) [7/6]
Released Ryan; signed Dan Meyer (P, FLA) [7/7]

Captain Steven Hiller: [after crashing the alien spaceship by the Grand Canyon] *That's* what you get! Ha Ha! Look at you!

If Johnson really is done, we have our winner for best trade of the year. Put an asterisk by this pick in next year’s draft to see who ELoE ends up getting for free. Also, nice snag on Meyer. (Teddy)

I was going to write a screed stating that a 6th round pick is worthless, then decided to go back and actually look at this year's draft swag. Picks in the 6th round included Kevin Slowey, Chris Carpenter, Nelson Cruz, Raul Ibanez, Adam Jones, and stud prospect Pedro Alvarez Those are 5 quality starters and a good prospect, almost all of which are probable keepers. So I stand corrected. Although I will note that this team drafted Randy Johnson with their pick in the 6th round, so in the meta-fantasy realm, this is sort of a wash. (El Angelo)

Unenviable Position

Claimed Mike Macdougal, RP, Washington off waivers; Released Kevin Correia, SP, San Diego [6/17]
Signed JD Drew, OF, Boston and Scott Rolen, 3B, St. Louis; Released Joel Hanharan, RP, Washington and Carlos Villanueva, RP, Milwaukee [6/19]
Released Drew; Signed Luke Hochevar, SP, Kansas City [6/23]

Julius Levinson: If I had known I was gonna meet the president I would've worn a tie. Look at me, I look like a schliemiel.

Mike MacDougal, Scott Rolen, and Luke Hochevar? That’s my haul for the past 3 weeks? I can’t really defend that. (Teddy)

No argument here. Also, I wholly endorse any time we can use Yiddish in a TA and it isn't just calling Sahil a putz. Back to Independence Day, has anyone figured out what sort of reconnisance the aliens did to know that the first buildings they should be destroying were the White House, Empire State Building and downtown Los Angeles, rather than, say, Sao Paolo or Lagos? Because if it was just a first guess by the aliens, it was a helluva guess to go after the world's superpower AND locate their most important cities and key buildings. Somehow, I doubt that happened. There must have been alien spies disguised as humans living amongst us for 40+ years before the attack who figured out the when, where and how to carry out this devastation. Otherwise, the movie doesn't hold water. (El Angelo)

Recalcitrant Cobbler

Signed Juan Rivera, OF, Anaheim; Released Carl The Truth Pavano, SP, Cleveland [6/21]
Released Rivera [6/23]
Signed Dan Meyer, RP, Florida; Released Gary Sheffield, OF, New York (NL) [6/25]
Released Meyer; Signed Fernando Nieve, SP, New York (NL) [6/28]
Signed Kenshin Kawakami (SP, ATL) and Oliver Perez (SP, NYM); released Nieve and Pat Burrell (DH, TB) [7/2]
Acquired via trade Randy Johnson (SP, SF); traded away Kawakami and a 6th-round pick. [7/6]
Signed Nyjer Morgan (OF, WAS) and Jose Contreras (SP, Really?); released Aaron Rowand (OF, SF)

Video Newscaster: [TV news anchor reporting] Once again, the L.A.P.D. is asking Los Angelenos not to fire their guns at the visitor spacecraft. You may inadvertently trigger an interstellar war.

A lot of random firing here. A dodgy trade capped off a period during which Gary Sheffield, Carl Pavano, Oliver Perez, and Jose Contreras all passed through the team’s roster. Not really one for the season-ending highlight reel. (Teddy)

That quote is the second-greatest "don't shoot" line of 90's cinema, right behind John Travolta's deadpan line from Broken Arrow: "Please don't shoot the thermonuclear weapons."

On the actual players for the Kenneth Cole Buttmonkeys, I'm actually of the opinion that Nyjer Morgan isn't a bad pickup, especially for this team, which is next-to-last in stolen bases. Their other offensive production is solid enough they can withstand Morgan's failure to contribute in other categories, but he may help get them 3-5 points in SB's, which constitutes the easiest pickings for this squad to improve. (El Angelo)

Wu Tang Financial

Signed Kevin Correia, SP, San Diego [6/22]
Released Chris Perez, SP, Cleveland [6/27]
Signed Casey McGhee (IF, MIL) [7/2]

[after starting up alien ship] Captain Steven Hiller: I have got to get me one of these!

Free pickup of the week goes to WTF, who land surprise performer Casey McGhee, a guy who has managed to drive the more heralded Mat Gamel back down the Milwaukee depth chart. Kevin Correia? Less so. (Teddy)

McGhee's a 28-year old rookie, so there's a lot of Shane Spencer potential here that it doesn't last more than a month or so. Still, shockingly, this team is suddenly fewer than 8 points from the money. It's worth riding as long as possible. (El Angelo)

Mission Accomplished

Signed: Ramon Ramirez (RP, BOS)
Called Up: Gordon Beckham (2B, CHW)
Waived: Yadier Molina (C, STL), Hong-Chih Kuo (Lt. Cmdr, Kuomintang)

Albert Nimzicki: If we don't act now, we may not have much of an America left to defend.

MA cleans out the bench, calling up his lone remaining prospect. It’s no real secret at this point that this team is emptying every barrel it has in an attempt to win it all this season, so the decision is no real surprise. That said, it’s a little unclear what, if anything, will be in place next year, so the team better hope that these moves add up to a flag. (Teddy)

Actually, next year is not as bad as it looks--next year will still feature, at a minimum, the core of Pujols, Beckham, Upton, Kemp, Jones, King Felix, Price and Slowey. Also, I don't see it as a detriment to have both prospect slots empty. There are currently 9 prospect slots open for the entire league, and even assuming that we get up to 12, that's still such a small number that it's not hard to restock them come next year without dipping too far into the world of Michael Ynoa. (El Angelo)

wormcheese mousebird

Signed: Juan Rivera (OF, LAAoA)
Waived: J. Honny Peralta (SS, CLE)

[Jasmine is driving around the ruins of downtown Los Angeles with hurt people in the back of a pickup and sees a preacher holding up a cross and a bible. He is wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says "The Time Has Come To Repent While You Can"]

Street Preacher: The end has come! He speaketh his word and the end hast come!

Jasmine Dubrow: Hop on! We're headed out to El Toro.

Street Preacher: You cannot defy what has come. It is the end!

Thus endeth the lowercase run of J. Honny Peralta, erstwhile keeper. We can only hope that he moves on to a better place, like Omaha. (Teddy)

I'm not sure what's more insulting to Peralta, that he was kept and consequently benched for Jose Reyes, meaning he was worthless on March 1st, or that he couldn't hold a starting spot when his competition was Ryan Theriot. What a fall from grace. (El Angelo)

It’s Enrico Palazzo

Squadoosh, yet again.

David Levinson: A toast, to the end of the world.

Are we sure this guy is still alive? Can someone go by his apartment and see if there are any odd odors detectable in the halls? We’re beginning to worry. (Teddy)

I'm a little disappointed that our closing quote wasn't something uttered by Marty Gilbert, played by Teddy's look-alike, the incomparable Harvey Fierstein. We'll just have to settle for photos of him playing Tevye. (El Angelo)

I Want Chad Ford to Be My Professor

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:14:00 +0000

The usual NBA draft post-mortem is up on tWWL, and Chad Ford has graded all the teams on their performance yesterday, which as we all know is something of a folly because it's impossible to judge a draft until 3+ years after it occurred. Still, Ford tried anyway because, well, that's his job.

Clearly Mr. Ford is from the Lake Wobegon school of grading, because there aren't a lot of negative marks handed out. Here's a breakdown of the grades he doles out.

A+: 1
A: 5
A-: 4
B+: 9
B: 1
B-: 6
C+: 1
D: 1
Inc.: 1 (Golden State, who presumably is dealing Stephen Curry)
N/A: 1 (Orlando had no picks)

Excusing Golden State and Orlando from the mix, twenty-eight teams received grades, of which a whopping 19 received a B+ or better. The draft curve is pretty clear: 10 above a B+, 9 at a B+, and 9 below. And of that, only one team (the poor, sad Lakers, who are only the defending champs) received below a C+.

Given that a C grade is supposed to be average, it's clear that Chad Ford thinks that 90% of the teams in the NBA did an above-average job yesterday evening. Methinks this is unlikely, especially in a draft so bereft of frontline talent. But I do think that I would have done a helluva lot better in law school if Ford had graded my Property final.

Should Blake Griffin Be the #1 Pick?

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:40:00 +0000

On Thursday evening, David Stern will get up to the microphone in the nee-Felt Forum above Madison Square Garden, wear a tie that will be the subject of 2 or more Bill Simmons jokes, and announce that the Los Angeles Clippers are taking with the first pick overall Oklahoma power forward Blake Griffin. Tens of thousands of articles, blogs, pieces and commentators will say over the next few days that this is the right pick, but that Griffin is cursed because he's a member of the Clippers. We're not here to focus on that. Instead, let's ask a question that everyone is ignoring: should Blake Griffin really go #1?

For the record, we have nothing against Blake Griffin. He's a fine basketball player, seems like a nice guy, and does not appear to be a stiff. But at the same time, he does not appear to be a superstar either. His college performance, while impressive, is reminiscent of guys like Elton Brand and Emeka Okafor. The best analogue in the NBA for him appears to be Antawn Jamison. In other words, he should be a fine pro, a good contributor, and an occasional All-Star. But a star or someone to build your franchise around? Highly unlikely. And when you have the #1 pick, you shouldn't be looking for a solid contributor. You should be looking for a stud.

What's more interesting is that he's not even a good fit for the Clippers roster. Let's examine his impact in three different time horizons.

Short Term (next 1-2 years): He's a power forward, which is the absolute last thing this squad needs. Currently on the Clippers roster is a good veteran center (Marcus Camby), a decent front-court player (Chris Kaman) and a petulant power forward (batshit crazy Zach Randolph). Hell, they also have DeAndre Jordan, a mildly intriguing prospect for the front court. Do they really need another big guy to compete in the next year or two? Didn't think so.

Medium Term (next 3-4 years): Okay fine, Camby's gone in a couple of years, and maybe they buy out the last year of Randolph's contract. Is Griffin really the answer for this roster then? Probably not. The Clippers are still staring at Stiff Kaman in the middle, Aging Baron Davis in the backcourt, and Eric Gordon hoisting up 3's in a contract push. Not only is Griffin unlikely to mesh well with this madness, he's also not going to be thrilled that this team still stinks, and will likely be renting in LA with an eye to being a free agent soon.

Long Term (5+ years): Okay, let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he re-ups after his rookie contract expires (probably at an exorbitant rate), which moves the debate to an analysis of Griffin's long-term upside. And again, he looks like he'll be a solid pro, but spectacular? Unlikely. Do you want him clogging up your cap as a second banana?

Given all of this, is it really the Clippers' best move to take Griffin? I say no. There's two ideas that make a lot more sense and are probably better basketball plays for them:

1. Trade the pick. I noted last year that this is a lot easier said than done, but let's note that the Clippers are picking first overall and that despite my reservations about Griffin, a lot of teams do really like him, and he's the closest thing to a "sure thing" out there. What could they get in return for the first pick? Not to play Simmons Jr., but here's 4 ideas that aren't absurd.

Memphis. The Grizzlies pick right below the Clippers, and appear to be thinking about taking Yinka Dare, er, Hasheem Thabeet. The problem is it's unclear what the Grizzlies could give up besides the #2 pick to compensate the Clippers for their troubles...maybe Mike Conley?
Oklahoma City. At some level the Thunder have the same issue as the Clippers as they don't really need a power forward. However, Griffin would actually be a great fit here, as he could play second fiddle to Kevin Durant for 10 years. Would the #3 pick and some combination of future picks (of which this team has a ton) be enough?
New York. Wait, they fired Isiah? Shit. Next idea.
Sacramento. Assuming you didn't mind what was available at #4, wouldn't that pick plus Jason Thompson make a lot more sense?

2. Take someone else. Is Blake Griffin the player with the most upside in the entire draft class? I don't think so. While some may argue that Thabeet is a potential stud, I disagree. However, Ricky Rubio is a potential stud point guard, and in the end, may be a perfect fit for this team. He wouldn't have to start immediately, which is good because he's 17 years old. He'd have 2 years of apprenticeship with Davis, et.al (assuming Davis doesn't get dealt--a fair assumption), and could take over the reins just when the Gordon-Al Thornton-Jordan-next lottery pick core was ready to mature. And based on his international play, he won't be a stiff, and may be a stud point guard in 2-4 years. Why not take him?

Taking someone safe with the first pick is a mistake. Taking someone who's a little bit more of a dice roll but could become the face of a franchise is a better idea because elite talent is hard to get in the NBA. So Clippers, take a fricking chance. Pass on Griffin, let him toil in Memphis for the next 4 years, and make your next point guard of the future Ricky Rubio.

The Dumbest Experiment This Season

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:57:00 +0000

Because we here at the Gazette are constantly striving to bring you the best and worst of fantasy baseball, Red Sox baseball, horse racing, soccer, the Big Lebowski, and or random stuff, we're expanding our tentacles a little further. Yes kids, the Gazette now has a Twitter feed. Follow the GRBG at twitter.com/gowanusbaseball.

We'll get answer the only two questions that follow:

(1) Why? Well, why not?

(2) What will the feed consist of? No clue yet. Look, this may fail and get abandoned after a few weeks. But we're all for trying out new technology. Follow us along, send us stupid messages, and let's see where this goes.

Transactions Analysis: Boris Spassky Edition

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:36:00 +0000

Tonight PBS is broadcasting a concert performance of the musical Chess from Royal Albert Hall, and has assembled an all-star crew for the show. The leads will be sung by heartthrob Josh Groban, the wildly talented and underappreciated Idina Menzel, and my wife's personal favorite, Broadway star Adam Pascal. There's one problem with this: Chess stinks. Written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, the same men who tortured us with ABBA (to say nothing of the disaster known as Mamma Mia), it has dramatically awful 80's music, and uses the Rocky IV Cold War of good-versus-evil, all through a thrilling game of...chess. To have these three talented singers performing Chess for a national audience is the rough equivalent of staging a summer concert in Central Park featuring Ben Gibbard, Alicia Keys and David Cook, and making them sing the songbook of Peter Frampton.

So besides being an excuse for an introduction, what does this have to do with the Wankdorfers and a TA? Well, if we were to look at chess the actual game, and not the hackneyed musical, we'd find a decent analogue to what's gone on transaction-wise over the past month. Some players are looking at the game defined as this season, while others are thinking 5-15 moves ahead and planning for 2010 and beyond. Some, to use a cliche, are playing checkers. And it's not clear who's playing what level and how well they're playing it without a thorough examination. Which is why we have TA's, and why we're going to analyze a slew of adds, drops and trades that have made people decide they're going for it or out of it much earlier than usual. Let's see what these transactions have in store for us, bearing in mind some portentious words from Chess:

I took the road of least resistance
I had my game to play
I had the skill, and more the hunger
Easy to get away
Pity the child with no such weapons
No defense
No escape from the ties that bind
Always a step behind. (El Angelo)

I'm not very good at chess OR checkers, so I've decided to play Chinese Checkers instead. Only problem so far is that my marbles keep rolling off the board. (Teddy)

The Loose Bowels

Released John Grabow, RP, Pittsburgh [5/29]
Signed Josh Outman, SP, Oakland; Released Jorge de la Rosa, RP, Colorado [5/30]
Released Dave Bush, SP, Milwaukee [5/31]
Signed Jerry Hairston, Jack of All Trades, Chicago (NL) [6/2]
Traded Jacoby Ellsbury, OF, Boston and Carlos Lee, OF, Houston to Le Dupont Torkies for Erik Bedard, SP, Seattle, Trevor Cahill, SP, Oakland, and David Ortiz, DH, Boston; Released Hairston [6/5]
Signed Mike MacDougal, RP, Washington and Carlos Gonzalez, OF, Colorado; Released Joel Zumaya, RP, Detroit and Vernon Wells, OF, Toronto [6/7]
Signed Adam Kennedy, 2B, Oakland; Released Ryan Theriot, SS, Chicago (NL) [6/11]
Signed Cody Ross, OF, FLA and Scott Podsenik, All-Star, 1998; Released McDougal [6/14].

We begin this TA by observing that our beloved commissioner must truly believe that he is the Messiah, because how the hell else can you justify acquiring both David Ortiz, Mike MacDougal (who was a league joke 7 years ago) AND Scott Podsednik, unless tawny was involved? All three of these guys are about as lifeless as you could imagine, be it from their talent being exorcised or never being any good to begin with. If Andy can breath life-giving breath into these three stiffs, the Mets would love to hire him to work on their injured players, which at last check, constituted 60% of their Opening Day roster. (El Angelo)

Don't look now, but Ortiz had 3HRs last week and has an OPS of over 1.100 in June. Anyway, the trade really comes down to how you feel about Erik Bedard. Although I (like a lot of teams, I'm sure) had Bedard circled going into the draft this year, but I think this is a buy-high deal. I make the case here that Bedard and Jarrod Washburn have both been bolstered dramatically by Seattle's great OF defense this year. That's not a problem by itself--the stats count either way--but could become one if the M's succeed in moving Bedard at the trading deadline, which they are actively attempting to do. If Bedard finds a soft landing space, it's a good deal for TLB. If he ends up pitching in front of Raul Ibanez in a bandbox in Philly, not so much. (Teddy)

The Spam Avengers

Signed Andy LaRoche, 3B, Pittsburgh [5/31]
Signed Josh Willingham, OF, Washington and CJ Wilson, RP, Texas; Released Joe Beimel, RP, Washington and Ian Snell, SP, Pittsburgh [6/2]
Released Willingham; Signed Ian Stewart, 2B, Colorado [6/8]
Signed Nolan Reimold, OF, Baltimore and Andrew Miller, SP, Florida; Released Brandon Morrow, P Seattle and Lastings Milledge, OF, Syracuse Chiefs [6/12]

What this transaction roster reveals is that Alex is spending way too much time watching crappy games on the MLB Extra Innings package, which is odd, because he's actually a Yankee fan. There isn't a single player here that comes from an above-.500 team, and in many cases, these are guys from last place squads. In fairness, I like the LaRoche and Stewart pickups, as both seem to have come into their own in the last month and are talented enough to stick in 2009. By contrast, I'm not sure that tossing Brandon Morrow overboard was necessary; do you really need to keep Ben Sheets on your roster that badly when he's not coming back until the High Holy Days? (El Angelo)

Morrow has announced that he is re-coverting back to SP after his failed stint as a closer. With that in mind, he almost certainly has no value this year, but might show enough in a late season recall to make him intriguing as a weak keeper going into next year. (Teddy)

Wu Tang Financial

Signed Jarrod Washburn, SP, Seattle; Released Andy Pettite, SP, New York (AL) [5/28]
Signed Luke Scott, OF, Baltimore; Released Barry Zito, SP, San Fran [5/30]
Released Michael Wuertz, RP, Oakland [6/3]
Signed Mike Lowell, 3B, Boston [6/9]

I'm renaming this team the Rip Van Winkles, because this pattern of moves indicates that Jon may have been asleep for 7 years and woke up to realized that Andy Pettitte and Barry Zito haven't been any good since the middle of 2004. While there's a definte gain by purging their carcasses from the roster, query whether adding the ageless Jarrod Washburn really helps this team now or later. Best case scenario is that Washburn gets dealt to a contender--what does he do then? Win games with bad rate stats? Become Joe Blanton-lite? That said, the pitching ranks in free agency are so thin, you could excuse picking up almost anyone. Except Mike MacDougal. (El Angelo)

Well, I pretty much fired my Washburn bolt above. That said, I approve of the Mike Lowell pickup, because you can never have too many one-legged infielders on your roster. I myself plan to sign Paul McCartney's ex-wife and stick her at short. (Teddy)

Recalcitrant Cobbler

Signed Randy Wells, SP, Chicago (NL); Released Rich Hill, SP, Baltimore [5/29]
Signed Clayton Richard, SP, Chicago (AL); Released JJ Putz, RP, Mount Sinai Medical Center [6/2]
Signed Aaron Rowand, OF, San Fran; Released Joel Hanrahan, Pederast, Washington [6/8]
Released Richard; Signed Carl The Truth Pavano, SP, Cleveland [6/9]
Signed Leo Nunez, RP, Florida; Released Dan Wheeler, RP, Tampa [6/11]

Clayton Richard's Wikipedia page indicates that he's from the middle-of-nowhere Indiana and was the Hoosier State's Mr. Football and Mr. Baseball. Given that Wikipedia isn't exactly known for being dead-on-balls accurate, I'm going to take the liberty of saying that this is 100% wrong, and that he's the grandson of Maurice Rocket Richard, the famed member of the Habs, because at a minimum, it gives him a much cooler last name.

Either way, it doesn't mask the fact that he's been vaguely useful for the ChiSox this year, but as a guy who's a spot starter/middle innings guy approaching 26 years old, there's not a lot of upside here and there's probably not much to gain long-term by keeping him. Of course, the Shoemen offset their smart waiver by promptly picking up every Yankee fan's favorite pitcher, Carl Pavano, who celebrated joining this roster by giving up 9 runs in 4 innings against the hapless Royals. I'm not sure if it's more of an indictment on the Indians that he's their nominal ace, or the threadbare nature of pitching in this league that picking up Pavano is mildly defensible. (El Angelo)

I wholeheartedly endorse the rechristening of Richard; to me he shall fovever more be "klay-TOHN ree-SHARD". Maybe this will one stick where our attempted Latin-flavored rechristening of Jaime Moyer as HAI-mee Mwoy-YAY" failed.

In other news, a useful back-of-the-envelope method for determining whether a team still thinks it has a hot at the money is to look at how many older setup guys they churn through in search of vulture saves and wins. By that measure the Keeblers are in it to win it, with Leo Nunez, Dan Wheeler, F--king Hanrahan and JJ Putz all riding the treadmill over the past few weeks. Is Guillermo Mota still available? If so, pencil him in for the Peach's roster in July. (Teddy)

Evil League of Evil

Signed James Loney, 1B, Los Angeles; Releaesed Joe Nelson, RP, Tampa [5/29]
Signed Chris Snyder, C, Arizona [5/30]
Signed Randy Choate, RP, Tampa; Released Conor Jackson, 1B, Arizona [6/3]
Traded David Wright, 3B, New York (NL) and George Sherill, RP, Baltimore to Mission Accomplished for Reid Brignac, SS, Tampa and their 1st round pick in the 2010 draft [6/4]
Released Choate and Brignac; Signed Mat Gamel, 3B, Milwaukee and Nick Blackburn, SP, Minnesota; Called up Andrew McCutchen, OF, Pittsburgh from the prospect list [6/5]
Released Snyder [6/9]
Acquired Brandon Morrow, P, SEA on waiver claim [6/15]

For the first time since joining the league, it appears that ELoE will not be in the money, as the white flag hath been waived in early June. The returns on George Sherrill and David Wright weren't poor considering there aren't a lot of actual contenders this year, but while the draft might be deeper next year, let's just note that great players haven't been falling to the 10-12 slot. What I like a lot more here are the shrewd pickups from the FA list; Brandon Morrow is an excellent flyer to rebound in the 2nd half, Nick Blackburn is not lacking for talent, and even Mat Gamel is interesting in a Jim Thome-lite way. I don't see any of that troika becoming central to ELoE's 2010 team, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see any or all of them kept. As usual, this owner doesn't screw around with veterans that might rebound (except for playing closer roulette for kicks, which we all do), but instead focuses on guys who might, you know, be part of a contending squad. Good way to start rebuilding for 2010. (El Angelo)

As you say, we can't really judge this deal until we see what the draft pool looks like for next year. That said, a team in ELoE's position can't really do much more than grab whatever first-round pick is out there and pray for deliverance. Honestly, the team's fortunes going forward might well be shaped more by call-up Andrew McCutcheon and his erstwhile prospect teammate Stephen Strassburg than any of the various parts of this deal, and that might work out just fine for ELoE. (Teddy)

ARoids Anonymous

Signed Brian Tallet, P, TOR; Released Brett Cecil, P, TOR [5/30]
Signed Fernando Martinez, OF, NYM and Jake Fox, DL, Forever; Released BJ Ryan, RP, TOR and Mark Teahen, IF, KC [5/31]
Signed JA Happ, SP, PHI; Released Kenshin Kawakami, SP, ATL [6/6]
Signed Vincenzo Mazzaro, GK, Inter Milan; Released Tallet [6/7]
Released Fox [6/14]

Snore. Let's go back to the wisdom of Chess for a summary analysis:

What's going on around me
Is barely making sense
I need some explanations fast
And when he gives me reasons
To justify each move
They're getting harder to believe

More apt words for this crapfest were never written. (El Angelo)

Is the lyricist for this terrible musical you keep citing really operating under the belief that you have to provide detailed justifications for each move you make? How would that even work? Though it could make the game more interesting if players used it as an opportunity for some psychological warfare: "I played QN to K4 in order to better control the center of the board, and also because your Mom asked me to while I was railing her last night [Slaps chess clock]."

Also, it's a little surprising that Fernando Martinez wasn't on anyone's prospect list. Nice find. (Teddy)

Mission Accomplished

Signed JD Drew, OF, BOS [5/29]; Released Drew [5/30]
Signed JA Happ, P, PHI [5/30]; Released Happ [6/3]
Acquired David Wright, 3B, NYM and George Sherrill, RP, BAL from Evil League of Evil; Traded away Reid Brignac, SS, TB and a first-round pick. [6/5]
Signed Clint Barmes, MI, COL; Released Mike Lowell, 3B, BOS and Garrett Atkins, 3B, COL. [6/5]
Acquired Mariano Rivera, RP, NYY and a 9th-round pick from Unenviable Position; Traded away Stephen Drew, SS, ARI and a 3d-round pick. [6/12]
Acquired Johan Santana, SP, NYM from Unenviable Position and Jon Papelbon, RP, BOS from wormcheese mousebird; traded away a first round pick (via Flaccid Funiculi) and Chris Tillman, SP-Prosp, BAL. [6/14]
Signed Jed Lowrie, SS, BOS and Yadier Molina, Molina, STL; Released Jarrod Saltamacchia, Hype Machine, TEX [6/15]

To my shock and surprise, my squad has not fallen apart as I thought it would by early June. When it became clear that dumping time was upon us, I decided it's time to go for it, because frankly, why the hell not? (Especially when you can make a 3-way trade, which to be a dork, just rules.) What's made going for it a bit more possible is the amount of low-hanging fruit available. Specifically, I'm last in saves, and now have 3 closers, which means there's an easy 3-8 points to pick up in saves alone, let alone what trickles down to ERA and WHIP. Also key from my angle is that I've kept Johan Santana and David Wright off of other contenders as well--something tells me they would have been desired. Of course, Santana has looked like dog shit for 2 straight starts, which is par for the course. Good enough for ya, Tucker? (El Angelo)

I'll say this: Ang has set himself up for an extremely high-tension fan experience down the stretch now that he has aligned the fate of his fantasy team almost entirely with the fate of his real-life team, the Mets, by acquiring Santana and Wright. I like the strategy, given the Mets recent history of strong finishes.

Also, Ang, you should trade your 2d round pick away to someone so that you can just skip the first hour of next year's draft, Phil Hellmuth-style. (Teddy)

Unenviable Position

Signed Brad Bergesen, SP, BAL and Anthony Swarzak, SP, MIN; Released Tim Wakefield, SP, BOS, and Mat Gamel, 3B, MIL [6/2]
Released Swarzak [6/4]
Signed Carlos Villanueva, RP, MIL [6/7]
Signed Dan Bard, RP, BOS; Released Jason Varitek, C, BOS [6/11]
Acquired Stephen Drew, SS, ARI and a 3d round pick from Mission Accomplished; traded away Mariano Rivera and a 9th-round pick. [6/12]
Released Ramon Ramirez, RP, BOS [6/13]
Acquired 1st, 3d round picks from wormcheese mousebird, and Chris Tillman, SP-Pros., BAL from Mission Accomplished; traded away Adam Dunn, 1B, WAS to wormcheese mousebird and Johan Santana, SP, NYM to Mission Accomplished [6/14]
Re-signed Varitek; Signed Jason Hammel, SP, COL [6/14]
Signed Glen Perkins, SP, MIN and Kevin Correia, SP, SD; Released Hammel. [6/15]

You know, we pick on Corey here a lot for picking up a thousand Blue Jays, but the more I look at Teddy's TA's, the more I realize he's the real homer nut in the league. I mean, Bard, Ramirez, Touchdown Tim, and Varitek ALL in the same TA? Why not just go all out and pick up Michael Bowden, Tim Naehring, Robinson Checo and Phil Plantier? This is beyond inexcusable.

What's a lot more excusable is dealing off a bunch of useful chits that weren't going to be here next year (Mo Rivera and Johan Santana) and a good outfielder (Dunn) for a couple of draft picks. Now personally, I don't think Stephen Drew is all that special and the 33rd pick in the draft is a bit of a dice roll value-wise, but you can't argue with getting a first round pick from Ironhead, especially while retaining their own. It's unlikely that either he or Ironhead will bottom out for a top-3 pick, but dealing off Adam Dunn plus some other stuff yields a stud, there's absolutely no way to quibble. Great pickup. (El Angelo)

I guess this is where I try to defend myself, so here goes. Drafts in the league have never gone more than 5-6 deep in no-brainer, franchise-type guys. A lousy team in this league thus faces a conundrum: any team that is willing to trade you a first-rounder in a dump trade is going to end up finishing high enough that the pick won't do anything but getting you first crack at the second-tier talents. I made this trade because its structure let me escape that conundrum. By getting Sahil's 1 I give myself two chances in the lottery, and at least a shot at getting two true top-tier talents. Throw in my prospect list, which now consists of Neftali Feliz and Chris Tillman, and my returning guys, and I have a shot to be real good next year.

at left: the truth hurts.

Also, query how much the trades actually hurt me this year in the aggregate. Drew might not be a All-Star, but he's a massive upgrade over what I've gotten from JJ Hardy this year. I have more than enough power, so losing Dunn won't hurt too much. And even with Johan, my SP-driven stats ranged from mediocre to horrible.

An analogy: when Branch Rickey was the GM of the truly terrible St. Louis Browns, his best player once came to him and asked for a raise. Rickey's response? "Son, we finished last with you; we can finish last without you." I think that logic applies equally well here. The only real ding I think I'll take this year comes from the loss of Rivera, which I was willing to eat to fill the SS hole. (Teddy)

wormcheese mousebird

Released Seth Smith, OF, COL [6/9]
Signed Vernon Wells, OF, TOR; Released Hank Blalock, CI, TEX, [6/11]
Acquired Adam Dunn, 1B, WAS from Unenviable Position and a 1st round pick from Flaccid Funiculi (via Mission Accomplished); traded away Jon Papelbon, RP, BOS, and 1st and 3d round picks. [6/14]

The participant in the 3-way deal that took the biggest risk, but I really like the move and the upside here. Yes, they are most likely trading down in the first round, but in exchange, they pick up Adam Dunn for 2+ years, which rounds out a somewhat underrated offense that really needed a bopper. And assuming the pick given up isn't in the top-3 (unlikely, as the team figures to gain in the power department), moving from #5 to #9-11 isn't that big a deal. What this team needs is to draft some good pitching next year, because their current rotation is for shit, but that's probably the easiest hole to fill in the offseason. (El Angelo)

I agree that the worsecheem mourdbises helped themselves a lot for this year, and I also have to say that I'd much rather have a 40-HR guy than a 40-save guy going forward, especially when the power guy is cheaper in keeper slots. As you say though, in the end the wisdom of the deal comes down to the end-of-season gap between the lowercase lovers and Flaccid Funiculi; the smaller the gap, the better the deal. If I were FF, I'd keep my roster away from suspicious packages. (Teddy)

Le Dupont Torkies

Acquired Jacoby Ellsbury, OF, BOS and Carlos Lee, OF, HOU from The Loose Bowels; traded away David Ortiz, UTIL, BOS, Erik Bedard, SP, SEA, and Trevor Cahill, SP, OAK. [6/5]
Signed Antonio Bastardo, P, Lehigh Valley IronPigs [6/6]
Signed Carlos Ruiz, C, PHI, Billy Wagner, DL, NYM, JP Howell, RP, TB; Released Willy Taveras, OF, COL and John Baker, C, FLA [6/12]
Signed Juan Rivera, OF, LAA; Released Ruiz.

Given the pickup, can we just rename the owner of this team Tony the Bastard? Because I can't think of a better baseball name since Oddibe McDowell. (El Angelo)

Indeed. When you pop out a bastard in Sicily, the villagers don't beat around the bush. None of that Irish-style, stick an O' on his name and be done with it approach. Just relabel him entirely to avoid confusion. Lovely.

Anyway, we should probably at least glibly discus the trade, too. It's a nice one, as the Torkies managed to buy themselves a brand new outfield for the (relatively) low cost of a faded star and a stud pitcher who might lose his studliness around the trading deadline. The trade does leave the Torkies short on reliable SPs, but given their nice head start in W's and their stable of vulture-W-specialist relievers, they should be OK. They'll be tough to catch in the absence of injury. (Teddy)

Flaccid Funiculi

Signed Sean West, P, FLA; Released Matt Palmer, P, LAA [5/29]
Released Mike Pelfrey, P, NYM [6/9]
Signed Ramon Trancoso, RP, LAD [6/12]
Signed Dallas Braden, SP, OAK [6/14]

What's truly frightening is that either West or Braden may be this team's third-best starter after Chris Carpenter and Justin Verlander. While my esteemed co-author mocked Braden a couple of TA's ago, Braden's thrown five straight quality starts, and has pretty fair rate stats to boot. Has he turned the corner? Unlikely, but this squad is going to need all the starting help it can get, so they may as well ride the hot streaks as long as they can. (El Angelo)

Dallas Braden does have the advantage of pitching in a big ballpark against a division with a couple of iffy offenses, so he could very well be useful, especially now during interleague play. I think otherwise mediocre AL pitchers are nice risk-reward plays during interleague games, especially in NL parks where they get a taste of the good life sans DH.

It's Enrico Pallazo

Squadouche [5/29-6/15]

Here's the second zippo on the year for these guys, who are mired near the bottom on the standings, somewhat inexplicably. Clearly, this is some kind of a gambit I can't fathom. For this, I bequeath them a picture of the man after whom arguably the most famous gambit is named, Pal Benko. (El Angelo)

What gambit is that, putting a bunch of day-old sushi in a box and selling it as a lunch special? I guess I shouldn't mock it, because it certainly works often enough times. (Teddy)

2009 Belmont Stakes Preview

noreply@blogger.com (El Angelo) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:27:00 +0000

The big story from this year's Belmont isn't who's running, it's who's not running. Despite winning the Kentucky Oaks and Preakness, thrusting herself well ahead of the pack in Horse of the Year discussion, Jess Jackson and Steve Asmussen have decided to keep super filly Rachel Alexandra out of the Belmont, doing "what's best for the horse." Which is refreshing.

But maybe it's also because winning the Belmont Stakes this decade has been something of a curse to a horse's later career. Since Lemon Drop Kid took home the carnations in 1999, Belmont winners have been an astoundingly bad 3-for-23 in their post-Belmont career. A quick run-through:

2000: Commendable upsets the Belmont at 18-1 in a brilliant ride by Pat Day. It's his second and final career win, as he drops his next four starts.

2001: Arguably the best horse to run this decade, Point Given romps in the Belmont, then comes back to win the Haskell and Travers, and is subsequently retired with an injury. Had he come back as a four year old, he may have been one of the more dominating older horses we've seen this side of Invasor.

2002: Sarava shocks the world by winning the Belmont at 70-1. He shocks nobody by finishing out of the money in his next four starts.

2003: Empire Maker gets revenge for his Derby loss, and then follows that up with a loss in the Jim Dandy at 1-5. He's then retired after a minor injury, given that his stud value has gone through the roof.

2004: Birdstone pulls off a surprise win over Smarty Jones at 36-1, then follows that up with a Travers win. For some reason, he's laid off until the Breeders Cup (where he loses), and is retired to stud. This is odd simply because he was owned by Marylou Whitney, who didn't exactly need the money, and because he wasn't a hot sire prospect.

2005: Afleet Alex wins by a football field over the immortal Andromeda's Hero. It's his final start, as he's ushered off to the breeding shed.

2006: Jazil beats a fairly motley group of horses (only 1 horse behind him, Bluegrass Cat, was actually any good) for his second and final career win. He follows it up with two second place finishes the following year and a dead-last finish on the turf before being retired.

2007: Rags to Riches takes the entire summer off after winning one "for the girls", and loses her comeback race to Lear's Princess. It's the last we see of her.

2008: Da'Tara pulls off a 39-1 gate-to-wire shocker, and has lost all 6 races since then.

Is there a common theme here? Not quite, but you could argue that the explanations fall into three categories:

The horse wasn't any good to begin with. This explains the big upset winners (Commendable, Sarava, Da'Tara), and to a large extent, Jazil, who really just took advantage of a good ride and good fortune against a Grade II field. While 2006 was one of the best classes of 3yos we've seen in a while thanks to Bernardini, Barbaro, Discreet Cat, Showing Up, Corinthian and Lawyer Ron, note that none of these horses were in the Belmont.

The horse was injured. This knocked Rags to Riches out. The question is whether the Belmont was the cause of her injury.

The stud deals were too good to pass up. Say goodbye to Empire Maker, Afleet Alex, Point Given and Birdstone for that reason. All but Birdstone also suffered minor injuries in their 3yo season, which were good pretexts for retiring early.

What this tends to show is that the Belmont is both grueling and lucrative. A win can mean a bonanza at stud, so long as you're not an inconceivable longshot. But it also may mean that your career may be cut short...unless, of course, you're a gelding, like Mine That Bird.

So who's going to be cursed this year? Let's run the entries down this year from worst to first. As a side note, we're going to try to live blog the Belmont tomorrow, but won't be getting there until the 4th race or so. Go Bimini.

Tough to See Winning

10. Luv Gov. Now that everyone is ripping off our exclusive coverage of Marylou Whitney's droll sense of humor, this horse is infamous. The problem is that he can't run that fast, and will be hard pressed to finish in the top half of the pack.

9. Brave Victor. The first of Nick Zito's two horses, this guy's the closer that clunked up for third in the Peter Pan last out. Given that the winner of the Peter Pan is someone we don't like (we'll get to him in a minute) and the runner up look like garbage in the Met Mile, it's tough to endorse him, the show finisher.

8. Flying Private. While he ran 4th in the Preakness, there wasn't a single point in the race where he looked like he was a threat to run better than fourth. And while he established a new top Gowanus Speed Figure in his last, it's more than a little bizarre that almost the entire Preakness field established a new top figure in the race. That's generally indicative of a bad figure, so downgrade his last by 5-8 points. Doing that makes him too slow and uninteresting.

7. Summer Bird. Going from Chris Rosier to Kent Desormeaux is arguably the biggest jockey change in the history of this race, so long as Kent doesn't pull this guy up in the stretch as well. The jock switch doesn't change the fact that this lightly raced colt owns nothing more than a maiden win and a clunk up third that looks even less impressive on review: Old Fashioned exited the Arkansas Derby with an injury, while Papa Clem has firmly established himself as mediocre. Some are touting this horse for a short at a price; we see him as, at best, exotics filler, but more likely overrated.

The Sucker Play

6. Charitable Man. The probable second choice in the race (our guess is he'll be around 5-2), he's a fantastic bet-against. His supporters will note that he's undefeated on dirt, 2-for-2 at Belmont, blah blah blah. The truth is he has no 2-turn experience (outside of a polytrack disaster), and his last race wasn't as good as it seemed, given that he had a perfect trip behind an intractable front-runner and no good horses behind him. To make matters worse, every trainer is well aware that he's a threat, to the point where they see him as the horse to beat. Shouldn't that be good? No. In a rider's race, a horse with tactical speed can get ridden to death by smart jockeys. It happened to Funny Cide, Smart Jones and to some extent, Big Brown. Look for it to happen again here.

The Interesting Price Plays

5. Mr. Hot Stuff. Well that was helpful. As noted in our Preakness preview, the Derby did little to tell us whether synthetics surface horses will do well on dirt because of the slop factor. Then came the Preakness, and Pioneerof the Nile flopped miserably. Does that damn this guy to also-ran status? Not necessarily. We like the extra time off and the fact that he was improving with every race until the Derby. He's probably not fast enough to win the race, but he's a must use "underneath".

4. Miner's Escape. Horse with early speed trained by Nick Zito that just ran well in his last at Pimlico and will be a square price...any of this sound familiar? Yeah, he's very similar to last year's upsetter, Da'Tara. We like him to be addressing the pace early and giving Charitable Man fits. Will he still be around at the end? Depends a lot on how the other horses run; if they're just off his flank, we don't love his chances, but if they let him and Charitable Man run a bit, he could sneak off with the race before anyone catches him. Intruiging price play for your Pick 3's.

Chief Contenders

3. Mine That Bird. We'd be very surprised if this guy was off the board, as he's turned out to be a pretty honest horse with a good late run. But we'd also be surprised if he's the winner. Why? Simple: dead closers do NOT traditionally fare well in the Belmont, because of the deep sandy track, the wideness of the turns, and the long homestretch. Grinders and pace pressers fare much better. There hasn't been a winner that's come from more than 10 lengths back in well over a decade, and the only "closer" this decade, Jazil, was less than 3 lengths out of it halfway through the race. While his trainer is saying that he'll be closer to the pace, we doubt they mean that he'll be that close to the front. He should be coming late (a la Denis of Cork last year), but arrive too late to win.

2. Chocolate Candy. He should be able to get first run on the rest of the field if the two front runners wilt. The big questions though remain: does he like dirt? Is he fast enough? Is he bred to go the distance? We're pretty sure the answer to the last question is yes (Candy Ride oiut of a Seattle Slew dam), and we think he's fast enough, there's just the nagging question of whether he'll translate well to the fast dirt. Given that he didn't totally pitch it in the Derby, and is working out well, we'll say yes and use him aggressively.

The Pick

1. Dunkirk. Anyone remember who the second choice in the Derby was? Oh right, this guy, who was everyone's favorite potential freak coming into the race. And the reason he wasn't the favorite was the same reason he was uncompetitive in the Derby: the mud. The slop elevated the excreable Friesan Fire to the role of favorite, and by all accounts (watch his replay), kept him from running even a passable race. It's a classic toss-out race. When you throw that race away, you're left with the horse who has the best GSF, good breeding (we're not crazy about Unbridled's Song at 12 furlongs, but if Northern Afleet can sire a classic winner, anything's possible), perfect connections, and has the most upside of anyone in the field. When in doubt, we side with the potential superstar. That's Dunkirk.

For those of you looking to make some plays on the fantastic undercard on Belmont day, we like Fabulous Strike in the True North, My Princess Jess in the Just a Game, Munnings in the Woody Stephens, Funny Moon in the Acorn, and Marsh Side in the Manhattan. Good luck and enjoy the day!

Transactions Analysis: Supreme Court Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Teddy) — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:55:00 +0000

With President Obama's recent selection of Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacant seat on the US Supreme Court, we here at the GRBG got to thinking about how the team owners in the league would break down along jurisprudential lines. So we're going to try to match up each team with its judicial doppelganger. How, you might ask, do we plan to do this when there are 12 owners and only 9 justices? Honestly, we're not sure. Let's all find out together, shall we? (Teddy)

In the past we've compared members of the league to actual baseball teams and dead Presidents, so why not take the next logical step? For our late August TA, when there's some really uninteresting moves being made, I suggest we do a TA comparing owners to dead rock stars. It's clear that Corey is the league's Freddy Mercury, and as for who's the equivalent of Left Eye Lopes...we'll keep you in suspense. Onwards with our SCOTUS march and insulting of transactions in general. (El Angelo)

Le Dupont Torkies

Signed: Coco Crisp (OF, Kellogg's), Oliver Perez (SP, NYM), John Smoltz (SP, BOS), John Baker (C, FLA), Jim Thome (DH, CHA)

Waived: Crisp, Glen Perkins (SP, MIN), Jed Lowrie (SS, BOS), Jason Varitek (C, BOS)

The Torkies keep steaming along, and spent the past few weeks stockpiling potential help for the second half of the season. John Smoltz is notionally a few weeks away, and Oliver Perez began a rehab assignment last week. Perez, of course, still has the handicap of not being very good, but Smoltz could be a fun toy while healthy this summer. For those wondering how the Torkies do it, one clue is to be found in the GP/IP columns in the standings--the Torkies rank second in GP by their hitters and second in IP by their pitchers. Can't win unless you play, boys.

So let's see here. This team's owner succeeds more through diligence than through any grand philosophical approach. At various points his team has been built around old guys, young guys, relievers, and hitters. In other words, while he might not be able to define what makes a good player, he knows one when he sees him. That approach, plus the owner's massive interest in pornography, makes Potter Stewart the obvious SCOTUS parallel here. (Teddy)

These moves only make sense if the defending champs follow them up by trading some of their surplus hitting to cure their holes on the offensive side of the ledger. While having a steroid-free Manny return in July will be nice, it also means they have another month and a half of Denard Span being their #2 outfielder, so it'd behoove them to start looking to deal for a hitter with a pulse. Unlike, say, John F'ing Baker. (El Angelo)

Flaccid Funiculi

Signed: Matt Palmer (SP, LAA)

Waived: Kyle Lohse (SP, STL), Jarrod Washburn (SP, SEA), Nyjer Morgan (OF, PIT)

Acquired Justin Verlander (SP, DET) and Shane Victorino (OF, PHI) and an 8th round pick; traded away Nick Swisher (OF, NYY) and a 1st round pick.

A nice roll of the dice by the newly named FF. The team is currently DAFL in steals, making Shane Victorino unusually valuable to them. Justin Verlander has been frustrating for most of the past season plus, though he has looked good recently. A bigger problem might be how to get Verlander innings, as FF is currently leading the league in IP (and GP) and is on pace to blow through the 1500 inning limit. By the by, this is an excellent bit of strategy move--go above pace to run up counting stats early, convince the other teams that they have no shot, and then cripple them by trading for their best players. Machiavellian. And trading the 1 next year won't hurt much if the pick stays in the 10-12 overall range--the pickings at that level have been slim over the past few years.

On to the court comp. Despite moments of madness (Mo Vaughn) and serving as a frequent target of mocking, this owner is sneaky, successful, smart, and friends with John Ashcroft. The fit is so perfect that we're willing to stretch past the SCOTUS bench to go with Robert Bork. (Teddy)

Absolutely love the judicial parallel and agree on the deal; the real notable pickup for them isn't Verlander, who methinks is about to crash back to reality, it's Victorino, who should net them 2-5 points in the steals and runs department. If you're going for it this year (and a team with three 4+ keepers is clearly going for it), then it's a deal you make. Nicely done. (El Angelo)

Mission Accomplished

Signed: Eric Stults (P, LAD), Mike Lowell (3B, BOS), Jason Kubel (OF, MIN)

Waived: Stults, Jim Johnson (P, BAL), Manny Parra (P, MIL), Jason Bartlett (SS, TB)

Acquired Nick Swisher and a 1st round pick; traded away Justin Verlander, Shane Victorino, and an 8.

My thoughts on the trade are pretty well handled above, so I only have two points here: (1) I assume you're only trying to win the whole thing at this point, because you had a shot to hit the board this year; and (2) Eric Stults is terribly underrated as an actor. If you're ever bored, go watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High again--he's one of Spicoli's entourage, along with a very young Nick Cage. The cast of that movie have won something like 8 Oscars at this point, which is the equivalent of the cast of Bring It On having racked up that many awards by 2030.

For the justice, we need someone Italian and smartassed who is never on the winning side, so Antonin Scalia is the clear choice. (Teddy)

Antonin Scalia has 9 children, one of which is a priest. I hope that's not the side of me you're comparing---my non-Christian wife would disagree strongly with that end result.

Regarding the trade, it looks like a dump and build for 2010, but it's actually not. I'm currently maxed out in W's and K's, and think Verlander's over the top. I also don't need Victorino; Kemp-Upton-Jones are better OF's, and there's no real difference between him and The Fukudome at this point for production. Hell, Swisher's as valuable in the power department. So it's subtracting little and adding a first round pick in the process, which granted, is probably going to be in the 9-12 range, but I see a deeper draft this coming year. It's also unclear how big a chance I actually have to win this thing (or even compete for money) this year; the price for closers on the trading market is so steep and my current level is such a product of Adam Jones and Pujols going apeshit. I wouldn't disagree with those who compared me to this year's Blue Jays squad. (El Angelo)

Unenviable Position

Signed: Dan Bard (RP, BOS), Emanuel Burriss (SS, SF), Mat Gamel (3B, MIL), Rick Porcello (SP, DET), Ramon Ramirez, (RP, BOS), Carlos Villanueva (RP, MIL), Jason Varitek (C, BOS), Elvis Andrus (Oops, Prospect List), Willie Bloomquist (SS, KC), Joel Pineiro (SP, STL)

Waived: Alberto Callaspo (MI, KC), Bard, Mike Lowell (3B, BOS), Villaneuva, Andrus, Bloomquist, Burriss, Edwin Encarnacion (3B, CIN)

Whew. That's a lot of movement for a team with one obvious problem: every starter not named Johan Santana shitting the bed simultaneously. Even I can't tell what I'm doing, so I'll just skip straight to the SCOTUS comp. As I am liberal, intellectually lightweight, and was once almost impeached by Gerald Ford, my best comp would be William Douglas. (Teddy)

Baloney--you've burned waiver priority on Daniel Bard, who you subsequently cut because he's a not ready for The Show middle reliever, and are currently giving PT to not only Touchdown Tim Wakefield, but also Jason Varitek, which would only be okay if it were 2003. It's not. You have clearly lost your brain and surroundings, and are becoming senile in your ripe old age. Couple this with your liberal stances and your latent narcissism, and your perfect comp is Frank Murphy. Deal with it. (El Angelo)

Aroids Anonymous

Signed: Brett Cecil (SP, TOR), Kenshin Kawakami (SP, ATL)

Waived: John Smoltz (SP, BOS), Koji Uehara (SP, BAL)

Not that I'm much better, but based on the above transactions it might be worth AA's time to watch a couple of games involving non-AL East teams. Who would be the best SCOTUS comp for a guy who is internationally focused and has access to odd European liqueurs? Stevens? (Teddy)

There's a lot of international flavor on this list, as Corey Cody Corey discards one Japanese guy for another, and picks up his usual token Maple Leaf in Brett Cecil, presumably because he can't find whatever rock Dave Stieb is trapped under. Both pickups actually are proto-Blue Jay, as Kawakami shut down the Blue Jays pretty well a week ago, which says more about a Toronto squad that's winless since Patriot's Day. But while it's clear these moves mean jack shit for the team's successes (or lack thereof), it's unclear which justice this equates to. I'm going with Bushrod Washington, just because the name is cool. (El Angelo)

Recalcitrant Cobbler

Signed: Dan Wheeler (RP, TB), Gary Sheffield (OF, NYM)

Waived: Sean Marshall (P, CHC), Jordan Schaefer (OF, ATL)

The cobblers got a lot older in a hurry with those transactions--Jordan Schaefer for Gary Sheffield? Yikes--which at least implies that they plan to make a run at the board this year. With Joe Mauer looking like the draft steal of the year, it's tough to argue with them. I do wonder whether the good two weeks they might wring out of Sheffield will be worth Schaeffer's future, though.

As for the comp, because we've now reached the precise middle of the league standings, we really can't go with anyone other than William Kennedy. (Teddy)

I actually am fine with the OF swap; Schaefer strikes me as a guy who's more useful on defense than offense, and so long as they properly cut bait with Sheffield the minute he turns or as soon as either Fat Squirrel gets healthy or Corey Hart gets a clue, they'll be in okay shape. But I mean that literally--cut Sheffield the MINUTE it looks dicey. You don't want him infecting your fantasy roster. (El Angelo)

Wu Tang Financial

Signed: Kiko Calero (P, FLA), Jason Bartlett (SS, TB), Kyle Lohse (SP, STL), Howie Kendrick (2B, LAA), Hideki Okajima (RP, BOS), Barry Zito (SP, SF)

Waived: Leo Nunez (P, FLA), Ian Stewart (IF, COL), Ricky Weeks (DL, DL), Dallas Braden (SP, OAK)

This just hasn't really been working so far this year, and the continuing refusal of the Orioles to promote Matt Wieters isn't helping matters. That on top of the season-ending injury to Ricky Weeks and continued baffling suckitude of Troy Tulowitski means this team's IF puts it in a pretty deep hole. On the other hand, it's not as though anyone is running off with 3d place so far this year.

On another note entirely, Jason Bartlett is running away with the Pewter Parachute. I feel like he has been one about half the teams in the league and it's still May.

SCOTUS choice? Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I can't really explain it, but it feels right, doesn't it? (Teddy)

Let's hope you didn't come up with Ruthy based on appearances. For those who haven't seen it, if you find yourself near the Columbia Law School, stop by and check out the oil portrait of Justice Ginsburg in the library, where they've accentuated her jowls to the nth degree. It's about as unflattering a portrait rendered since Picasso took on Gertrude Stein.

Also, I believe Bartlett has some stiff competition from Dan Wheeler and Edwin Encarnacion, but hey, there's a lot of ball left to be played. (El Angelo)

Evil League of Evil

Signed: CJ Wilson (RP, TEX), Juan Pierre (OF, LAD), Joe Nelson (RP, TB), Derek Holland (P, TEX)

Waived: Wilson, Chris Ray (RP. BAL), Jason Kubel (OF, MIN)

A friendly tip to any MLB drug enforcement employees who might have wandered by: did you guys check to see whether the Dodgers assigned Juan Pierre to Manny Ramirez's old locker and/or trainer? Because Pierre appears to have stumbled on some pretty good shit. It won't last, but his performance over the past few weeks mean ELoE wins this TA's award for best pickup. Joe Nelson is also a nice snag in the wake of Troy Percival's potential retirement. That would be pretty sweet, if one of my draft picks just retired rather than stay on my roster. Gives a man a warm feeling.

SCOTUS has to be somebody who parachuted on to the court from outside, dominated things for a while, and then stepped back to handle personal business. The best comp would be Earl Warren, who wasn't a judge or practicing attorney prior to joining the court, and certainly made a splash in his first decision as Chief Justice (Brown v. BoE, for those wondering). (Teddy)

This team has to be lining up the pieces for a trade, right? I mean, their bench has Matt LaPorta, Carlos Quentin (?), Phil Hughes, Clay Buchholz and now, Derek Holland. They've got to be ramping up for a big deal, because there's a lot of rebuilders that would like those players. In the meantime though, these are decent if boring transactions that seem to indicate that EOE is biding his time until his guys get healthy or he can make a deal. Though given that he's spotting Tucker a 28-point edge at the moment, time may be nigh. (El Angelo)

wormcheese mousebird

Signed: Luke Scott (OF, BAL), Brian Bannister (SP, KC), Seth Smith (OF, COL), Todd Helton (1B, COL), Mark DeRosa (IF, CLE)

Waived: Jim Thome (DH, CHA), Andy Sonnenstine (SP, TB), Scott, Mike Fontenot (2B, CHC)

For reasons unknown the mousebirds celebrated their return to the east coast by attempting to rebuild their roster using only players from sub-.500 teams. An Oriole, a Royal, two Rockies, an Indian--only things missing were a Clipper and a Jet. I actually like the two OF pickups, as the production level of the average fantasy team's 3d OF hasn't been all that impressive this year, and there are marginal gains to be made there.

SCOTUS comp is easy: Brown Guy = Thurgood Marshall. (Teddy)

With all due respect to Scot picking up Joe Nelson, Ironhead wins for transactions of the week. On the same day (May 13th), he picked up Todd Helton and Seth Smith, who were, respectively, the backup quarterbacks to Peyton Manning and Eli Manning in college. Either that's the most ridiculous coincidence in fantasy history, or the Healer spent his time between jobs thinking of ways to get a TA shout out. Well done, sir. (El Angelo)

It's Enrico Pallazzo

Signed: Manny Delcarmen (RP, BOS)
Waived: Cory Wade (RP, LAD)

IEP continue to have the fewest transactions of any team in the league. There is a thin line between keeping a steady hand on the tiller and deluding youself into believing that you can just power the boat through an iceberg; IEP is dancing right on that line right now. As for SCOTUS, we need someone who is used to having a partner shape their decisions and who hasn't been all that active on the bench recently. Scalia sidekick and noted silent partner Clarence Thomas fits the bill. (Teddy)

This team's lineup has precisely 3 players that are fixtures: Ham-Ram at SS, Russell Martin at catcher, and Dan Uggly at second base. Everyone else is fairly fungible. So naturally their position player move it...picking up a second baseman? Huh? Color me befuddled by the whole thing, much like I'm befuddled at Thomas' refusal to ask questions at oral argument. Good parallel, Theodore. (El Angelo)
The Loose Bowels

Signed: Luke Hochevar (SP, KC), Brandon Wood (SS/3B, LAA), Jorge De La Rosa (P, COL), John Grabow (P, PIT)

Waived: Homer Bailey (SP, AAA), Mark DeRosa (MI, CLE), Yadier Molina (Molina, Molina) Hochevar, Wood

The Squishybums transaction list for the past few weeks contains no fewer than five add/drops involving players with that little NA next to their names. While fooling around with players who don't actually, you know, exist for purposes of the game might bring some intellectual reward, it's unclear how such a strategy will lead to the commish's first-ever money finish. Stay tuned, I guess.

For a SCOTUS pick we'd need somebody devoted to debating issues that don't actually exist. As a result I'd love to use Scalia again. But I don't want to cheat like that, so instead I'll go with someone with a similar background to this team's owner. As the commish is (I believe) a Latina from the Bronx, we can go with soon-to-be Justice Sotomayor. (Teddy)

You know, I was trying to figure out why this team was mired at the bottom of the heap. Reviewing the last few weeks' doings reveals that they tinkered with a bunch of over-hyped minor leaguers, dumped a Cardinal for no reason, added a Colorado pitcher with an ERA over 5, took a flyer on one of Pittsburgh's milleu of bad relievers, and signed the Twins' fourth outfielder. We may have found our answer. (El Angelo)

The Spam Avengers

Signed: Ben Sheets (SP, Nobody), Billy Butler (DH, KC)

Waived: Kyle Davies (SP, KC), Anthony Reyes (P, STL)

Signing a guy who is not currently under contract is usually a bad sign for a team's fortunes; this appears to be no exception. Much like the retiring David Souter, TSA appears to have had enough of this shit for the time being. (Teddy)

That's actually his best move this week. The other three players involved here have a combined VORP that's lower than Jeff Keppinger's 7.3. Enjoy rural New Hampshire, Alex. (El Angelo)