OK, where will all these players end up?  I used to try and make predictions- but they never ended up accurate at all.  I also have a pet monkey named Spike.  So now I just let him draw a player name and  team.  He has been fairly accurate matching up his combo of selections.  But then again, some of his selections seem almost absurd.   Anyway, he just lives with the results and goes about his business waiting for Spring Training like the rest of us.  See if you can beat the monkey.

How we do it- I put the names of 12 MLB free agents into an otherwise empty 40 oz McDonalds plastic cup .  The player names are fairly randum names of FA's, although we try to concentrate on players who will have a choice of a few different clubs.  Then I put the names of all the MLB teams in another 40 oz McDonalds cup.  Spike pulls a player name out and then pulls out a team name.  Those are his matches.  The player name and team name is then discarded. So there is only a chance that a team can sign only one of these players.   Then the picks continue until we have 12 players and teams. 

 

Spike's Picks-

1. Bobby Abreu- Tampa Bay

2. Garret Anderson- Colorado

3. MIlton Bradley- Boston

4.  Joe Crede- Los Angeles Angels

5. Ryan Dempster- New York Yankees

6. Rafael Furcal- Cincinnati

7. Ken Griffey Jr.- New York Mets

8. Trevor Hoffman- Washington

9. Randy Johnson- Texas

10. Derek Lowe- Cleveland

11. CC Sabathia- Florida

12. Mark Prior- St. Louis

There you have it.  Some picks are long shots but that's the way it goes in these sorts of things.

I may be in the finals of my Sportsline NL only championship this coming week.  The scoring is h2h and points.  Points are given mainly for wins, saves and to a lesser degree k's.  I can start seven pitchers.  Which of the following should I go with?  I have a few penciled in already-

 

Aaron Harang vs. Todd Wellemeyer in Cincy

Trevor Hoffman- 3 games at Colorado and 3 at DC

Ted Lilly- against Ben Sheets at home

Braden Looper- against Aroyo in Cincy and Rich Harden in Chicago

Rickey Nolasco- against Brian Moehler in Florida

Roy Oswalt- against Volstad in Florida and Olendorf in Pittsburgh

Edinson Volquez - against Pineiro in Cincy

Joel Hanrahan- 7 games at home (4 against Mets, 3 against SD)

James Parr - against Moyer and Pelfrey both in Atlanta

Chad Qualls- 7 games, 4 at home against SF and 3 at Colorado

Jeff Suppan - at Cincy TBA

 

Obviously Roy Oswalt gets a start.  Maybe Hoffman and Qualls as well.  Looper has been nothing special but has two starts although one against Harden.  Nolasco and Volquez are both good enough to make the first cut I think- maybe Nolasco more than Volquez.  What do you all think?  I need seven.

Also, any more hurricanes coming next week?

 

This is just a heads up that by signing up for MyCoke Rewards you can get free StatTracker on yahoo! fantasy football.  Here is the link-

http://www.mycokerewards.com/beginHTMLRegister.do?id=ffst&locale=en_US

Sign up for MyCokeRewards with the same email address used to create your yahoo fantasy football team.  You should get a code within 48 hours.  Apparently you need to sign up for your yahoo fantasy football team first then MyCokeRewards.  If you have a non-yahoo email for MyCokeRewards already you can change it to a yahoo one, then use that email to sign up for fantasy football.

I was wondering what the state of fantasy NBA is now.  I played pretty extensively about 8-10 years ago but have not touched the stuff since then.  What are the usual scoring formats?  Back when I played we started 5-7 players and took their total points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks for the week.  That was about it.  I have saw 3 pointers worked in the bunch, especially with rotisserie play.  But that's about it. 

 

Back when I played I wrote articles for Fantasy Sports Magazine and CBS Sportsline but pretty much got burned out on the whole thing.  Actually I invented a color coded chart which broke down season schedules which worked pretty well for leagues that utilized the scoring format like I mentioned above.  I have thought about putting it together again as it would work if the scoring has not moved to "weekly averages" or something like that.  But I would need to figure out html or how to create a drop down menu to compare teams easier.  Maybe something we could put on here if anyone is interested, plus a tutorial.

 

Anyway, if anyone could add some info I would appreciate it.

Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you'd know the reason for this custom.

Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

So my Sportsline AL only h2h team is 3-8 heading into this week.  Last week I lost 267.833 to 266.5.  Then news came that Colon was placed on the DL and Chien-Ming Wang is essentially lost for the fantasy season.  I also have Paul Konerko at 1st and he has not done much for the season.  But losing him hurts as only Brad Wilkerson was a somewhat viable option off waivers.  These Sportsline leagues do not allow slots for injured players.  They either take up an active (but benched) roster spot or you have to drop them. 

 

There are two divisions in my league.  Four of the five top scoring teams in the league are in my division (5 teams per division).  My team has scored the third most points this year. And currently I am four games out of the final playoff spot with 12 weeks to go, including this week.  A few weeks ago I had the worst record in the league yet had scored the second most points.  One reason for that is that my team has had the second most points scored against them of all the teams. 

 

As I am looking at the scoreboard I see that my team has scored the second most points this week.  Not atypical.  A week by week breakdown-

 

Week 1- I win this week, scoring the second most points in the league and beat the team currently in 1st place in the other division.

 

Week 2-  lost, bad scoring week.  But lost to one of the worst teams in the league.

 

Week 3- lost 315-344, I outscore 5 other teams but cannot expect much, lost to a team in my division who is currently in 2nd place.

 

Week 4- lost, high scoring teams are 370, 365 and 341.  I score 341 and play the guy who scored 365 .  Current record 1-3 .  Lost to the team now in first place in my division. blah

 

Week 5-  win, scored the most points of any team for the week.  Good win but this guy is ahead of me in my division now.

 

Week 6- lost 260-284.  Lots of low scoring teams this week.

 

Week 7- lose 352-312 to the team in first place in my division.  High scores for teams this week are 352, 327, 321, 312.  Gues who I played?  At this point I have scored the second most points in the league and have had the most points scored against any team.  My record is 2-5 and I am in last place in my division.

 

Week 8- lose horribly, bad scoring week for me.  Record is 2-6.

 

Week 9- lose 283-252.  At this point I have slipped to the third most points scored for the season.  But I still easily have the most points scored against.

 

Week 10- rare win and score the most points of any team for this week.  Current record is 3-7.  The team I beat is also now 3-7.  The difference is that I still have the 3rd most points scored for the season at 2939.  His points for the year are 2463.

 

Week 11-  lost.  This loss hurts as the score is 267.833-266.5.  And it is to team that has two wins more than me now, but has scored nearly 600 fewer points on the year.

 

So if I win this week I'll be 4-8 with the second most points scored on the season.  But as everyone knows, in AL only leagues pitching is king.  Losing Wang hurts a lot.  I dropped him and grabbed Mike Aviles off waivers.  Maybe he'll turn into something.

ESPN,  the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, has decided to change the name of its nightly baseball news show, Baseball Tonight, amid user response for a "hipper and happier" title.  After an internal vote it was decided that the new name would reflect both ESPN's desire for an acronym as well incorporate  Baseball Tonight's historic strategy of repeating funny, one-line remarks over and over again, to the point of creating a cliche ad nauseum.  The new name of Baseball Tonight will be FTHWOG! Tonight (pronounced: fthwog tonight).  This historic new name incorporates ESPN's nightly baseball television show's ability to capture America with it rivoting announcement on each homerun highlight "Fill thy horn with oil (and) Go!"  

 

The new show name is expected to satisfy the current ESPN audience with a hipper and happier title as well as draw millions of other viewers who will be simply overtaken by the intoxicating trademark yell, "Fill thy horn with oil (and) Go!"  Just tonight, FTHWOG! Tonight labled no less than a dozen homerun shots as "Fill thy horn with Oil (and) Go!" shots!  This new FTHWOG! monicker replaces several older and outdated homerun slangs, such as the more famous "Yardwork!" and "Deep and unplayable"  and the lesser known "Baby's got bat!" and "Whoops, there it goes!".  FTHWOG! Tonight is definitely a hit.  Or, more accurately, FTHWOG! is a "Fill thy horn with oil (and) Go!" shot.   

 

The name FTHWOG! Tonight will replace the name Baseball Tonight sometime  tonight.  If not tonight, then possibly tomorrow night which will be tonight tomorrow.  Look for FTHWOG! Tonight nightly on your ESPN network.

I have to start seven pitchers in my Sportsline AL only league (H2H, points).  I am alright with six of the seven-

Papelbon, George Sherrill, Joe Nathan, Mark Buerhle, Chien-Ming Wang and Jon Garland.

I have no intentions of starting Dontrelle Willis, Armando Galaragga or Kenny Rogers.  If anyone thinks differently let me know.  The two I have to choose between are Bartolo Colon and Doug Mathis.  Colon is scheduled for his first start of the year against the Royals and Brett Tomko.  Whether that actually comes to fruition is anyone's guess.  Mathis has two starts- the first against the Twins and Glenn Perkins and the second against the Tribe and maybe CC Sabathia. 

Two starts are nice because of the possibility of getting the extra points.  Also it is possible to get negative points if a guy gets totally shelled.  But then there is the chance that with the extra start that damage can be mitigated. 

Pitching point categories are below-

Scoring for Pitching Categories
BBI - Walks Issued (Pitchers)	-0.5 points
CG - Complete Games	5 points
ER - Earned Runs	-1 point
HA - Hits Allowed	-0.5 points
INN - Innings	2 points
K - Strikeouts (Pitcher)	1 point
S - Saves	10 points
W - Wins	10 points

 

Who would you all go with?  Colon or Mathis?  Or someone else? Colon has been pretty hot in AAA while Mathis has just pitched 3 innings at the MLB level this year- three relief appearances, 3 k's and a walk- no earned runs.  I am not so sure he can get through a line-up 2-3 times though.   At AAA for the Redhawks (PCL) Mathis had seven starts, 45.2 innings and 43 hits, 30 k's and 10 bb's while giving up four homers.  His ERA was 3.55 and batters his .253 off him. 

Galaragga has been on his "last start" for the Tigers for a while now but keeps trucking along.  Willis probably has next to zero chance of making an appearance sometime next week.  Rogers got drilled recently and may be the worst of the bunch right now.

 

Any ideas?

Looks like the activity on the posts went way down after the switch to the new look. Personally I like it. I wish a person could edit their posts as opposed to having to make additional posts when they realize something previous was posted in error- happens to me quite often, it seems. Well last year Ryan Braun was called up about this time. I wonder who will make a big splash this time around. Jay Bruce? Chase Headly? Any pitchers looking to be called up soon? I jumped on Nick Adenhart but he has a little ways to go before making the bigs his everyday home. I wonder how many of the freshly called up pitchers will be shut down at 170 innings or so? Would that include Kershaw? I thought I saw the other day he was pitching a few innings here and there (like 4 or so)to keep the innings down but maybe that was someone else. I am assuming it is to keep a pitch count low in case they are needed later in the season. What are everyone else's thoughts?

I saw this question on another board a before the season started and I predicted 78 wins.  The question came back up a couple days ago and many people were adding 4-6 wins to their previous total.  I am sticking with 78 and here's what I posted explaining why:  

  "I'm sticking with 78 wins. I liked the Villone signing when it happened. It was a move that did not get much notoriety but looks like it could pay off well.

Let's take a look at the starting pitching we have faced thus far-

Game 1- rainout
Game 1 (official)- Kip Wells Loss
Game 2- Aaron Cook Win
Game 3- Ubaldo Jiminez Win
Game 4- Odalis Perez Win
Game 5- Matt Chico Win
Game 6- John Lannan Win
Game 7- Wandy Rodriguez Loss
Game 8- Shawn Chacon Win
Game 9- Chris Sampson Win
Game 10- Kevin Correia Loss
Game 11- Barry Zito Win
Game 12- Matt Cain Win
Game 13- Tim Lincecum Loss
Game 14- Dave Bush Win
Game 15- Carlos Villanueva Win
Game 16- Manny Parra Loss
Game 17- Matt Cain Win
Game 18- Tim Lincecum Loss
Game 19- Jonathon Sanchez Loss
Game 20- Carlos Villanueva Win
Game 21- Manny Parra Loss
Game 22- Ian Snell Loss
Game 23- Tom Gorzelanny Win
Game 24- Shawn Chacon Loss
Game 25- Roy Oswalt Win
Game 26- Brandon Backe Win
Game 27- Bronson Arroyo Loss
Game 28- Johnny Cueto Win
Game 29- Aaron Harang Win
Game 30- Rich Hill Win

So of our 19 wins, about five have come against pretty good/top pitchers. Of our eleven losses four have come against top pitchers. In all though, that means we have had 9 games against pretty good starting pitchers and 21 pretty bad ones. I don't think we could have asked for a better schedule.

Of those 9 games against pretty good pitchers, a 5-4 record is not bad. How have we played in those 9 games?

John Lannan game 6 3-0 win
Matt Cain game 12 8-7 win
Tim Lincecum game 13 4-7 Loss
Matt Cain game 17 11-1 Win
Tim Lincecum game 18 0-3 loss
Ian Snell game 22 4-7 loss
Roy Oswalt game 25 4-3 win
Bronson Arroyo game 27 3-4 loss
Aaron Harang game 29 5-2 win

Of course, the bad part of the 9 starts above is that none of them were against a team with a winning record. And the combined records of the teams we have played is now 90-117, before the Cubs series. And of the 21 games against the rest of the starters we are 14-7. That's not bad.

Those nine starts above were against the top seven pitchers we have faced this year. But how have those seven pitchers faired overall thus far in 2008? They have a combined 4.24 ERA and 1.47 WHIP. And that is despite Tim Lincecum who is having an outstanding year (we are 0-2 against him).

But it also says that of our 30 games this season, only six have been against teams with a .500+ record. And in those games- five against the Brewers and one against the Cubs- twice we have went against Carlos Villenueva, twice against Manny Parra, once against Dave Bush and once against Rich Hill. Those four pitchers have a combined 5.40 ERA and 1.63 WHIP and Dave Bush was sent to the minors before having to be recalled today to replace an injured Yovani Gallardo.

In all our schedule pretty much says that the Cards have played nine games out of thirty against seven pretty good starting pitchers who are, as a group, not having a good 2008. Of the teams with winning records we have played, we have gotten the tail end of their rotations except for Rich Hill. Maybe he should be added to the pretty good pitcher list. But it is late and I am not changing all these numbers.

So it is not just that we are getting an easy schedule thus far. Our "hard" part of the schedule has been a lot easier than expected as well.

So I am sticking with 78 wins."

Anyway, how many games do you think the Cardinals will win and why?