Season Preview: Presidential Timber

The new owner of this franchise gallantly stepped into the breach last season following the abrupt departure of the enigmatic M**e. In doing so, he followed in the proud interim replacement footsteps of Sam Perlozzo, the Hotter Becky from "Roseanne", and, of course, Paul Westerberg of the seminal '80's indie band The Replacements.

But the Plesidential Erections have some experience in this league, and aspire to move beyond their replacement status and establish themselves in the top half of the league, despite inheriting a keeper roster bleak enough to cause his predecessor owner to cast himself into the pit of despair. Will he succeed? The answers below, in the form of wisdom gleaned from song titles of the original Replacements themselves.

Infield--"I Bought a Headache" off of Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash

This franchise has been based around Albert Pujols ever since the current owner's first go-round in the league, when he out-fine-printed a league full of lawyers to renew Pujols' contract risk-free. Now, though, Pujols is down to one functional set of elbow tendons, and is playing for a Cardinals team that is unlikely to compete this year. That could well add up to reduced playing time, and possibly early season-ending surgery for Senor Cornholio, which would effectively hamstring this group.

The rest of the infield falls into the solid but unspectacular category, with the Lewinsky Pacifiers hoping that Ricky Weeks stays healthy, JR Towles is for real, Orlando Cabrera doesn't regress too far off of his surprise season of last year, and that Kevin Youkilis avoids another second-half swoon. It seems unlikely that all of those hopes will be realized, and even if they are, there's not enough there to hold down the fort if Pujols goes sideways.

Outfield--"Bastards of Young" off of Tim

The outfield skews consistently young, with no players over 30, and most of them either hit or act like bastards. Matt Holliday anchors the squad, giving the team a 4+ category stud to build off of. New addition Curtis Granderson adds speed and even more power, and should score a ton of runs hitting at the top of a loaded Detroit lineup this year. Aaron Rowand is pencilled in as the third OF, but will likely soon lose playing time to budding star and certified jerkface Lastings Milledge. If Milledge comes through, this is likely to be one of the strongest OFs in the league this season.

Starting Pitching--"You Lose" off of Hootenany

Let's start with the positives: Roy Hallday was the steal of this year's draft, and also neatly addresses the owner's Blue Jay fetish, and Tim Hudson and Jered Weaver have each been effective one (and only one) of the past two seasons. Off to a good start!

But then we have to move on to the negatives: Brian Bannister was the luckiest pitcher in baseball last year, and is unlikely to sustain his results given his poor peripherals and freakishly low BABIP last season. Josh Johnson is coming off of a broken face last year. And Shaun Marcum sucks and rather less neatly addresses the owner's Blue Jay fetish. Plus. there's nobody behind these guys, meaning that the team is going to have to be pretty active on the waiver wire to fill out an effective staff. Much work to be done here.

Bullpen--"Gary's Got a Boner" off of Let It Be

Hi, I'm Gary.

In Huston Street, Brad Lidge, BJ Ryan and Jose Valverde, this team is one of the few that can claim to have saves in depth without having sacrificed their staff's combined ERA and WHIP to get them. While most teams attempting a 'pen-first strategy have fared poorly in this league--look no further than the ill-fated M**e for proof of that--some, like last year's champions, have had some success. At the very least, the stable of steady closers should provide the team with some useful trading chits down the stretch, which might prove valuable with Pujols starting to get more expensive in the very near future.

Prognosis--"Color Me Impressed" off of Hootenany

This team is better than it has any real right to be given the mismanagement of the past few years. Still, there are too many questions in the infield and the rotation for them to make a run this year. We see them climbing back to respectability, but ultimately having to focus on '09.

Season Preview 2008: Le Dupont Torkies

We turn our delightful gaze now towards the 2006 champion Le Dupont Torkies, a squad whose success on the virtual diamond is only exceeded by their owner's hilarious indignation at the idiocracy of others. If you think Teddy and I are brutal, you have never seen the Wrath of Tucker post a hideous trade. It's a combination of humor, honesty and history. In other words, he's Ben Franklin, minus the pot belly and unrepeatable foibles.

What comes with the rampant (and usually merited) criticism is the unassailable fact that this has been the best team and owner in the league's 6-year history. Since changing their name from Toilet Phace to its current iteration, they have yet to finish out of the money and have a pair of league titles, and the owner will still argue that he should have won in 2003 but for the innings limit rule. What's made this even more impressive is that the league's level of difficulty has increased, what with the expulsion of 3-4 owners who didn't know their asses from the elbows and the addition of stalwarts Darrin, Scot and Alex, all of whom have a title to their credit. This team, unlike the Yankees, Rangers and Mariners, is proof that you can win with A-Rod.

Sadly for the Torkies (though not the balance of the league), 2008 represents a fulcrum year for the squad, as A-Rod next year becomes a 4-slot keeper under the new rules, and it's hard to see how they'll be able to keep him plus additionally expensive players like Chase Utley, Joe Mauer and Chone Figgins. So while it's not quite an end of an era season for this team, the immediacy of the pending availability of those players will make him, by necessity, an active trader throughout the year, be it as a buyer or seller.

2007 Recap: The 2006 Champs burst out to an epic lead by Memorial Day, amassing a 15+ point lead by June 1st. In keeping with league history, the lead fizzled by the All-Star game and they were caught by It's Enrico Pallazzo by August, who ran away with the title. This is the third time we've had a team open a huge lead in May (me in '03, Alex in '04) to watch it disappear by mid-summer. Let's call this the Terry Leach Phenomenon, named after a perennial quick starter that lapsed into craptitude every August.

Infield: Joe Mauer, James Loney, Chase Utley, Alex Rodriguez, Mike Young. When you start out with one MVP (A-Rod) and one shoulda been MVP (Utley), you can run mediocrities in the other 3 slots and be okay. Which they haven't done--Young is underrated and a nice bounceback candidate; Mauer's a catching stud; and Loney has Breakout Star written all over him, so long as Torre doesn't bench him for Nomar. Here's the best IF in the league, folks.

Outfield: Magglio Ordonez, Bobby Abreu, Manny Ramirez, Chone Figgins. An interesting vet collection that's high OBP, could slug 100 homers, and is probably good for 50 steals. Let's call this an "asset", though I'll note that Magglio is prime to bounce off last year and nobody likes Manny this year, meaning he'll hit 45 home runs

Bench: None. Well, that was easy. This squad always goes light on offense, and Figgins can play supersub, but I have to believe they'll be dropping a fizzled starter for something like Nate McLouth come May. Speaking of which...

Starters: Clay Buchholz, Adam Wainwright, Ubaldo Jimenez, Tom Gorzelanny, Franklin Morales, Scott Baker, Boof!, Scott Olsen. Now that's a lot of young pitching. This seemingly inscrutable nontet can be divided into young Rockies, young Twins, druggies, guys from bad NL Central teams and Buchholz. The hedges are all over the place here--the Rockies guys should get W's but kill the rate stats; the Twins and NL Central guys may win a combined 30 games but strike out 1000 hitters, and Buchholz may spend significant PT in Rhode Island. This staff makes Jake's look secure. However, the owner's bold enough to act on the waiver wire with vigor, so I suspect we'll see some new faces come July.

Relievers: Jon Papelbon, Trevor Hoffman, Brandon Lyon, Jon Broxton, Heath Bell, Brian Fuentes. It's a mixed bag of closers here, with a young guy on a good team (Paps), a fair guy on a good team (Lyon), and an old guy on a fair team (Hoffman). The sad part is that Broxton's (left) the 2nd best pitcher here and he'll be of minimal value barring injury.

Breakout Star: James Loney will make me regret dumping him in favor of Matt Garza. Bank on it.

Bust Potential: Bobby Abreu does get the benefit of being on the Yanks for his counting stats, but I don't like his OBP and HRs to stay up.

X Factor: I can't pick just one from that staff can I? Actually yes--Adam Wainwright may be an ace in the making, and if he doesn't show signs of injury after tripling his workload last year, he could be the ace the team needs. He could also be on Dr. Frank Jobe's ER table in May.

Prediction: This offense is too good not to get the team 45+ points on the half of the ledger, but there's an abundance of reliance on lottery ticket pitchers and surprisingly little in the way off good trade bait. It's stupid to count out an owner that's finished worse than 4th exactly once, but this team needs a lot of arm help, and barring that, is going to struggle to compete for the top spot.

Season Preview 2008: Wu Tang Financial

Leading off my quartet of previews is something we haven't seen before: a resuscitated name in Wu Tang Financial. Now, we've had a bunch of squads that have had the same name year after year (Evil Empire, The Spam Avengers, Le Dupont Torkies, to name three). We've had folks like myself, Teddy, Andy and Scot who cycle in a fresh name every year. We had M**e, who stubbornly refused to actually name his team, and has rightly been banished to the Duke Snider penitentiary. And we have Ironhead, who changes his name every lunar cycle, yet somehow keeps it consistent by failing to ever note that his keyboard has a shift button.

But Jon's the first guy to hit the way-back machine for his team name, which is good from the perspective that naming your team after Phil Mickelson or James Garfield is pretty moronic. At the same time, it's not like he's channeling some great wins from the past by dredging up the old nom de plume; it's one thing if Jake wanted to bring back whatever his team name in 2002 was, but revamping a failure? An interesting gambit.

Which brings us to his roster, which in and of itself is an interesting gambit. For the third straight year, WTF has assembled a team of hard throwing starters and burly hitters that pound the ball a lot, but can't run for shit. In short, he's put together the Nintendo Ice Hockey team with 5 fat guys. How does that play out in rotisserie baseball?

2007 Summary: A decent-if-boring 8th place finish for the Bloated Southpaws was made possible from a year of a ton of home runs and wins. The downfall between them and true contention was the fact that only three guys accumulated saves for their entire roster (one of which, Joel Zumaya, had exactly One Save), and a total lack of any footspeed, keeping their R's and SB's in check. This is what happens when you load up on blubbery guys who hit the ball a long way.

Infield: Kenji Johjima, Prince Fielder, B.J. Upton, Troy Tulowitzki, Edwin Encarnacion. Youth is well-served here, with the exception of Johjima, who's probably the definition of Replacement Level Catcher. What I like here is that all of the infielders help a different statistic: Fielder's a power stud, Upton's perfect for steals and run, Encarnacion is nice with RBI's, and Tulowitzki should be solid for OBP. Presuming that there isn't much of a regression from last year's nice seasons for the non-Edwin portions of the infield, this is a nice productive group.

Outfield: Rick Ankiel, Fat Squirrel, Lance Berkman, Jay Bruce. A useful collection of outfielders that's no worse than good at any position, as even I've come around on the virtues of the Burrell. If Ankiel develops, this is a pretty nice collection of men patrolling the green, albeit 4 guys with absolutely no speed whatsoever.

Bench: Rafael Furcal, Kelly Johnson, Coco Crisp, Mark Reynolds. Furcal and Johnson are nice backups at positions where the squad's got guys who both injury prone and prime candidates to revert to the mean, so they're a sensible addition. As defense is not a category, I cannot fathom what the hell Coco Crisp is doing here, unless they wanted a mascot for kicks.

Starters: Carlos Zambrano, Chris Young, Javier Vazquez, Scott Kazmir, Derek Lowe Face, Zach Greinke, Barry Zito. Stealing Kazmir with the 5th pick of the draft turned the staff from mediocre at the top to very solid all around. Jim Duquette's legacy is a veritable stud, and the pair of Zambrano and Vazquez is a nice combination of good innings, wins and strikeouts. Greinke's a neat breakout candidate, and while I can't say a lot of good things about Lowe, Young and Zito, they're far from the worst candidates to provide a lot of K's and some solid innings. This isn't a top-shelf staff but it's one with a lot of good players at the core.

Relievers: Francisco Rodriguez, Chris Ray, Joakim Soria, Cla Meredith. The team's biggest weakness, but one that can be overcome with either a few key injuries or a good eye over the waiver wire. K-Rod is at least a nice start to getting 40+ saves, and there's a chance Soria wins the Doug Jones Award for the most statistically productive closer on a crappy team, previously held by luminaries like Bobby Thigpen, Bob Wickman, and repeat winner the Late Rod Beck. Have to think some of the depth noted above may need to be traded out for some saves.

Breakout Star: On everyone's list, Jay Bruce is either the #1 or #2 prospect. The ballsy pick of Bruce in the 2nd round indicates the franchise believes, and I can't argue with them. Here's to him breaking out in his rookie year into a Ryan Braun-esque phenom.

Bust Potential: I'll go on the record as skeptical that Chris Young can repeat his All-Star performance of last year. Partly because I think he's overrated and mostly because I think he's now in front of a porous defense and is lacking a good offense to produce, I like him to regress to below the median. Plus, everyone hates Princeton kids.

X-Factor: The Cincinnati Reds have jerked around Edwin Encarnacion for three years now, refusing to just give the guy a starting role desipte him having a helluva bat. It would seem that a change of manager would be the perfect remedy for him, right? Wrong. Welcome to Ohio, Dusty Baker, hater of young players and walks. This is a pick that could yield anywhere between 8 and 35 homers.

Prediction: This is a surprisingly solid all-around team without a real weakness to be seen, with the exception being the lack of closers, which is the easiest problem to remedy during the season by trade or by the waiver wire. I'd pencil them in for a mid-pack finish as currently constituted, with a decent amount of potential to move up with a couple of savvy trades.

Season Preview: The Fighting Isaiahs

I will admit that I initially made the error of assuming that this team's name was a reference to current Knick coach/former ABA executioner Isiah Thomas, which would have made for a parade of easy jokes for this preview. Instead, we've learned that the Isaiah in question is the team owner's son, which somewhat circumscribes this article's cheap shot potential. Regardless, we'll soldier on by ignoring both Thomas and the kid, and proceeding in the spirit of the team's namesake prophet.

That's fitting, because the real question for this franchise is whether the following nugget of wisdom from Famous Original Zeke will end up telling the tale of its season:

“And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the wound, and he recovered.” (2 Kings 20:7)

This team has a lot of talent, but also a lot of recent injury history. If everyone heals quickly, whether by conventional medicine or a more holistic, fig-based approach, the team is a threat for the board. But this is also a squad from which the wheels could come off in a hurry, especially in the rotation.

Infield

This is the steadiest area for the Zekes, as Ian Kinsler, Derek Jeter, and Adrian Beltre are all the sort of players whose ages and/or reputations lead one to believe that they'll manage to pull their cleats on and get out there at last 145 times this season. While durability isn't the sexiest quality in a player (for real-life or fantasy purposes), the durability of these three should let the Angry Prophets focus their transaction attention on the other, riskier areas of the team.

The remainder of the infield, Todd Helton and Jason Varitek, come with known issues. For Helton, the issue is a chronically bad backl for Varitek the issue is that he is a 36 goddamn year-old catcher backed up by the eminently mortal Kevin Cash, whose career batting line (.167/.223/.265) is worryingly comparable to the career batting line of Roger Clemens (.173/.236/.207). Still, both guys provide enough production when healthy to justify their roster slots.

Outfield

This unit is anchored by Grady Sizemore, who provides about as close to a sure thing as you can expect. The other guys are shakier, as Nick Swisher lost 40 points of slugging last year, Hideki Matsui was hurt or ineffective for about half of last season, and Juan Pierre is one good Dodgers management decision away from being a bench player. On the upside, all of the above except Pierre are solid OBP guys, and Pierre would likely be used as an SB-poacher only by this team. So this unit is iffier than the infield, but still infinitely more reliable than the . . .

Starting Pitching

The starting rotation looks like it was assembled by Bear Stearns. I'm all for upside, but the team's four starters behind Brandon Webb threw for only a combined 313 innings last year, and one of the four (Ben Sheets) missed a considerable chunk of time in '06 as well. While there's no denying the upsides of Yovanni Gallardo and Francisco Liriano, one of the two is coming off Tommy John surgery, and the other is all of 22 years old. That's nicely bracketed by the final starter, Randy Johnson, who is both more than twice as old as Gallardo and coming off medical problems like Liriano.

Look, all pitching staffs are inherently risky and subject to pretty wide health and performance variations. But this is bordering on ridiculous. The one thing you have to say, though, is that if all of these guys make it through the season, they should provide fantastic fantasy stats. The potential beta here makes this team one of the hardest to peg for the coming season, and ensures that the team's owner will watch every pitch from the edge of his seat this year.

Bullpen

As this preview is coming pretty early in the series, let's start by establishing an important ground rule: most bullpens suck. There are maybe 15 reliable relievers out there, and 5 or so of them aren't closing, forcing fantasy players to choose between performance and saves.

The Zekes have decided to focus on saves, with solid second-tier closer Jason Isringhausen fronting a brace of crappy Floridians, Kevin Greggggg and the reanimated corpse of Troy Percival. That choice makes sense--the team will only be competitive if the rotation stays healthy, and if it does stay healthy, it will be good enough to carry the peripherals of a couple of crappy closers. But this pen certainly won't come close to saving the staff if the rotation guys are dinged up again this year.

Prognosis

A fun team to watch, but the mid-level offense, combined with the interest-only mortgaged rotation, leads us to bet on a high second division finish.