It Happens Every Spring

Today is the Giants’ home opener, and just as it is supposed to happen, I flipped on the TV this morning with my morning coffee and found the old Ray Milland classic playing on HBO. We all love that movie, but we should remember that at its heart, it is about cheating – applying a chemical substance to the ball. On the other hand, what is funnier than watching King Kelly’s “hop” pitch.

I started this piece – the post BABI auction report - on Saturday, and got about ½ way through it, and now pick it up to finish today. I’m incredibly, incredibly busy in the office, but I can’t post this next week, so I’ll do my best now.

I do have a lot to say. As all of you who were there Friday can attest, yes, I do have a lot to say. Let me start by saying how great it was to see you all again, and how much fun the Doc and I have with all of you guys each year. The Doc and his wife Kenny 9 have joined Mr. Leaguer in his big money league – greener pastures, fancy enough to have their draft in Vegas. But many of our best friends were in that room at Fort Mason last night, none of whom we knew when we started in BABI fourteen years ago. *

* I can never remember when we actually started in BABI, but I have a foolproof method to determine it. We drafted Ryan Klesko in our first year for $16, and he had his first solid year in the bigs. Every time I want to remember when we started in BABI, I just log onto Baseball Reference, type in “Klesko” (he’s the only Klesko in major league history) and note that in 1994 went from 17 at bats to 245 and he hit 17 homers in those 245 at bats.

Allow me to give props to the most influential man in the room during the BABI auction: Merv Pate. Who? No, he’s our utility player.

Merv Pate wrote the Rotolab software. I believe the following teams were running that software Friday in addition to the Pecklers: Falkuhns, Cartel, Old Rips, Pounders and I’m guessing Da Bums. We mostly use the software to keep our lists of remaining players current, and in the general order of what we have in mind, plus to keep track of team rosters and money and needs. I enjoy using the software, though scrambling around trying to find Steve Holm is no fun. Merv has changed my experience of draft preparation and draft execution for the better.

There is a tendency to rely a lot on the values from Shandler that Rotolab imports. You could see it periodically. We got into a bidding war with the Pounders for Billy Hall, who nominally had a value of around 15. He was by far the top outfielder on the Rotolab list. We wanted him, partly because we like him, and partly because I knew he had hit 2 homers and driven in 6 yesterday afternoon against the Giants. It turns out Kevin did not know this. When we bid 20, we were sure we had him, but Kevin went to $21. We blinked, and Billy Hall was a Pounder. We ended up with Mike Jacobs instead, but I think we’ll look back at that moment not too fondly.

Anyway after the Hall War, the Doc turned to me and said that Rotolab caused that war. The software, which updates the inflation values with each change, just made him stick out. I’m sure I would still have wanted him, but I might not have bid quite so much. Modern technology in action. On the other hand, nothing beats good player evaluation.

There was monster inflation this year. Total profits kept according to Shandler were in excess of $550, which meant that we had inflation of about 35%. Then it got worse. The first few players did not sell for the inflation premium. The Falkuhns bought Santana for the highest price ever paid for a BABI starting pitcher, $41, but our inflation number was $46. They also paid $36 for Wagner which factoring in inflation was a bargain. Reyes – 50; Pujols - $45; Beltran and Teixeira - $40; Ramirez - $41; C. Lee - $43; D. Lee - 35: they were all relatively reasonable and generally cheaper than last year. Berkman was relatively expensive at $44, though the Cartel were probably buying him for his two steals in week 1. But this confirmed one of my auction theories: the top players are not inflated enough because buyers feel uncomfortable in the stratosphere.

At this point almost everyone had money to burn, and it stayed that way until the very, very end. If you wanted someone, you had to buy him for more than you wanted. Bargains were few and far between, particularly bargains over $10. If someone was a bargain, there was usually a reason for it. Pierre, the famous French aviator went for $20. Pedro went (to us) for $11. Freel went for $13. Each one has his concerns.

So there were bidding wars on every decent hitter. Taveras went to us for $35. We really liked Taveras. Really, really liked him. We figured he would go for $28, but we penciled him at $33. Some butthead bid $34. What are we to do? Mr. Thornton Melon said after the draft he was shocked at how expensive Taveras was. We were, too. But we have him projected at 45 steals, with a downside of 35 and an upside (from Mock Draft Central Dot Com) of 60. Last year he had 33 steals in 98 games. Meanwhile, this confirmed the great rule of auctions: it only takes two teams to entertain everyone else with their overbids.

And as the auction went on, it got worse. The Lickers had a bottomless pit of money to spend on hitting, and it was no fun to buy a guy when they were bidding against you. Geo had even more money, but at heart he’s a value guy, and in the end he kept wimping out, so it wasn’t quite so bad with him. The Pounders never seemed to have money, but they always seemed to have just enough money to buy what I wanted.

Four teams had a ton of money when the quality had disappeared: Cappers, Busch Leaguers, Lickers and the Melonheads (I told you, you’ll never see EBP here in these official BABI pages). And so you end up with Raj Davis for $9, and Chad Qualls for $10 and Todd Helton for $27. And for us, Jason Bay at $28. It was no fun buying hitters that the Lickers were interested in.

There was a new trend: bidding wars on potential closers. The Pecklers planned to live and die with Kerry Wood as our closer, and buy 4 or 5 potential closers: Marmol (insurance for Wood, but probably a future closer), Bell, Pena, Riske, Heilman and Rauch.

Speaking of Rauch, we had him at $5 and threw him back. We think he’ll be the closer this summer when the Nats trade Cordero. We threw him back because we figured he’d go for $7 and we wanted the extra year on his contract. Don’t forget – we only kept 9 players, so we could have kept him, and it was a tough decision. So on Friday we tossed him back and on Sunday night he came in as the closer in the 9th inning. Chad Cordero is hurt. Today he’s on the DL, but on Friday there wasn’t even a whisper about this. Imagine our team today if we had a $5 Jon Rauch on it, and we had an extra $21 to spend on everything (the $26 we spent on Lidge minus the $5 for Rauch). DOH!

But even still, who knew what was going to happen to these potential closers. Marmol went for $17. (Note – Wood pitched a clean 9th yesterday for his 3rd save.) Bell went for $12, Heilman $11, Riske $13 (he’s not even #2, guys!). Fuentes was $8, Lindstrom $6. Jon Rauch went for $16. Not ONE PERSON ever asked for him in trade. And Tony Pena went for $19, $2 more than Eric Gagne. That has got to be a record for a non-closer. When I saw Lyon’s line last week, blowing that save against the Reds and Edwin Encarnacion, I said that Pena’s price just jumped $10, and I was definitely right. Lyon blew another one yesterday, but Qualls, not Pena, was there for the save, and Fantistics is guessing it will be Qualls. We were interested in every one of these guys and we bought none of them.

Part of the reason we were not competitive for the potential closers was we moved early to Plan B. The Doc was responsible for making all of the bids for the Pecklers. I’m tired. I’m not thinking too sharp (I know, what’s new?). On the other hand, the Doc has been in 2 full AL and NL drafts in the past week. So he bid $24 on Lidge while price enforcing. Lidge was sitting on top of the closer list with an inflation value of $36 according to Merv and Shandler. Someone said $25. The Doc suddenly said $26, and I closed my eyes. Silence. It was the same price as Tom Gordon last year, who I bid on while price enforcing. He freaking KILLED us. Same team, too! The Doc turned to me and said “It’s a good price.” I replied, “That’s what I said about Gordon last year.” It was not by plan, but we now had a second closer and no money for any of the potential closers.

The thing that we’ve been grousing about for a year is we would have had Soriano had we not had Gordon. Our plan was to buy Gonzalez and Soriano, and we had bought Gonzalez when Gordon came up. Suddenly, $26 was gone, and we couldn’t go to $13 on Soriano. This year, we couldn’t buy Bell, or Pena (we never would have said $20, though) or Heilman, all guys we wanted. We did buy Cla Meredith again, this time for $3, but although we really like him, it’s not quite the same thing.

We went to war over Taveras, and Jason Bay, Chris Duncan and Mike Jacobs. We also had the penultimate bid of $30 on Brad Hawpe, $25 on Andy LaRoche, and the aforementioned Hall. And we were serious bidders for Ankiel and Kearns, as well as Bell and Heilman. Some guys we liked blew way past our numbers. Some guys we hated blew way past our numbers, too (uh, $13 for Randy Wolf – OOF! To Boof!) What is so great about this game is its unpredictability. You can analyze everything past and nothing future. It will be what it will be. Whatever was special about last year is now the conventional wisdom. You have to be a contrarian to win, but you also have to be right. The only thing predictable is unpredictability.

One last Pecklers’ story, and then on to the other teams. As I said, the Doc was responsible for all (well almost all) of the bidding. I could not control myself and blurted $11 on Soto because the Doc looked like he was in a coma. That number just felt so cheap. As it turned out, he blurted out $11 simultaneously. I apologized, because I had made my promise, but also because he didn’t really trust Soto, but there was no knowing who we could afford later. Anyway, that’s not the story.

If you look at our final sketch of the Pickled Battle Plan, we showed 5 starting pitchers, including Webb and Wainwright, who were kept, Pedro or Arroyo at $15, Carlos Villanueva at $7 and Paul Maholm at $4. Those were the guys we wanted. We’ve been drooling over Villanueva since last season. We almost bought him when our mantra was “2007 - last time you can buy Villanueva for a buck.” We had him 2 different times last year, and he was great for us. Every sketch of our 2008 team had him on it. We bid our $7 and someone came back at $8. I was looking straight at the Doc and he appeared not to be breathing. At “Going Twice” I smacked him in the arm and he yelped “9.” Good doggie!

No one defies the conventional wisdom more than Kenny 9. Half way through the draft and he’s got $13 for 11 spots. He bought the last SIX players. He has no closers, but has $36 invested in three potential closers. Thirteen of his players are $1 or $2. He’s a believer in the contrarian theory, but he forgets that you also have to be right. We sat next to each other, and we had a blast together. I knew he wanted Josh Johnson for a buck, and don’t forget, he basically couldn’t say “two.” I kept threatening to bring him up, but hell, we’ve got a good team this year – we don’t want that guy. We did fight over Hawpe and Ankiel (another ridiculously tough guy to go up against for a hitter), but for most of the night he was just an observer. There is no evaluating his team, because Kenny 9 is an extreme fantasy player, and I’m just not smart enough to know what he’s doing. I’d say bottom three, but I said that last year, and he still came in 6th. Of course, that was behind us, if he’s forgotten.

The Lickers love hitters. My guess is they spent less money on a pitching staff ($48) than any team in BABI history. That left $232 to spend on hitting, and having kept 2 $2 catchers and Felipe Lopez at $7, that meant they had $221 to spend on the other 12 hitters, or an average of $18.42 per player. As I said, it was no fun bidding on a hitter against them. They bought Helton, Delgado, Encarnacion, Tejada, Alou, Cameron and Freel. Bought them. They are sure to have plenty of hitting this season, but the fun will be watching whether their pitching staff can stay above water. And they have punted saves completely. They have an intriguing team, quite contrary. How will their garden grow?

We haven’t had a new guy in BABI in a long time. Thornton Melon took over a bad, bad team. Welcome to BABI – we’ve all been there, but your keeper list was really, really bad. That’s a shame. He bought some big players – Beltran (good price at $40 if he has knees), Zambrano (looked great in his first outing) and Ricky Weeks (we bid the penultimate on him, too – we really, really wanted him). He got Rauch, who is the official closer for now. It is impossible to take a team seriously, though, that bought Tom Glavine for $8. Did the team who bid $7 really want him? That couldn’t have been price enforcing. We suspect the Melon Balls will be the first team dumping.

We liked the Pounders draft if not their keeper list. We think Kevin did the best job of finding reasonably priced talent. Teixeira at $40 was a wonderful price. Gagne is scary, but $17 was cheaper than Pena, the same as Marmol and only a buck more than Rauch. This guy IS the closer. Sheets looked spectacular against the Giants. Kuroda pitched well last week. Billy Hall looked like the real deal on Friday. These were all solid prices in an inflationary environment. This may be the only team with a mediocre keeper list that is now a contender.

Hank thinks farm picks are now worth more than money in the draft. It was certainly true last year and this year. We offered him Keppinger at $5 for his 2nd round pick, and he turned us down, and then spent $8 MORE on him than he could have had him for. The way he’s hitting, we sure wish we had kept him. No one wanted him – we offered him to everyone. We figured we’d buy him back for the same price. There is some talent on this team, but you can tell we have different values for some of the players, though he did take Damnit from us. I liked Noel’s purchases of Francis at $12 and Jurrjens at $3. General George McClellan, on the other hand – he’s just not a gamer.

We loved the Bums’ keeper list, but we did not like them spending $29 on Valverde. They have $57 tied up in closers, and it is going to leave them short somewhere. We’re not sure where, but we think that was a mistake. They have a lot more cheap guys than they did last year. We don’t know if that’s good or bad. But, man – that was some keeper list.

The Cartel had a great keeper list too. We think he made a mistake on Oswalt. We never had interest in him. We think he’s headed downhill. We’d rather have bought Smoltz or even Lowe at a lower price. On the other hand, we’re in the Juan Pierre camp, who he bought at $20. We know there is a mess there, but there is no way he won’t get 35 steals and hit at least .290. And this is the team that spent a buck on Steve Holm.* I have season tickets to the Giants, and I didn’t even know who he was. Is he really going to do better than Brian Schneider, who went undrafted and is a starting catcher?

* Steve Holm was drafted. Seven Giant pitchers were drafted, including 5 starters. One hundred and twenty National League pitchers were drafted. Yet NOBODY would venture a buck on Barry Zito? OK, he sucked last year, and on opening day and yesterday too. But nobody, even teams playing for next year, wanted to take a chance on a relatively young guy that won a Cy Young award a few years ago? He may suck, but we came pretty close to buying him at the end. The funny thing is, we had $1 left for our last pitcher slot. We were deciding between David Weathers (who is a setup man, everyone, and had a pretty decent season last year) and Zito. I said to the Doc, “Let’s nominate Weathers first, because he’s the safe one.” We did, and we got him, but when we nominated him, Mr. Leaguer looked at me and asked, “He’s the safe one?” Well, yes. Had someone said $2 on Weathers, we’d own Barry Zito right now.

The Falkuhns paid a good price for Santana. But they didn’t have to spend $36 on Wagner, and it tied up way too much money in their pitching staff - $120. By the way, the Bums spent $126 and the Rips $122. Everyone else had a more normal split. They ended up with a lot of cheap guys. They also had a great keeper list, but we’re not convinced they capitalized on it. They do have a lot of cheap speed, but they have some guys on that pitching staff I’ve barely heard of. Mr. Dot should have made two more deals. He tossed back Ruiz at $2 and Greene at $16 and Arroyo at $7, all of whom when for a lot more than that. He says he tried. To quote the great American president, Gerald (Warren Commission) Ford, “Baloney!”

Geo didn’t seem all that prepared. He certainly wasn’t prepared to deal with the rampant inflation. He did pay $35 for Derrick Lee, which is looking like an awfully good price this week. But Geo is a value guy, and he insists on waiting for values, even if there are none. Looking at his team, we might be lucky he didn’t spend that last $11. This team has more talent than you realize, and maybe, just maybe, he picked the right guy (Qualls) to insure Brandon Lyon.

Boof was price enforcing on Pujols against the Leaguers when he said $45. Be careful what you wish for. I liked the Doc’s line – the Pickled Pecklers like to price enforce on $3 guys. Boof wasn’t prepared to spend that much on him, and it changed his draft tremendously. He also spent $28 on Hoffman, the second scariest closer after Lyon. Even scarier than Gagne. Why? Because Hoffman is on a good team that is going to contend and he has not one but two guys behind him who could take over as closer (Bell and Meredith, neither of whom has given up a run yet). Gagne has nobody of substance to step in, but Hoffman looks done. On the other hand, his other 40 year old, Smoltz, looked sharp yesterday. We don’t think Mark spent enough money on hitting, and now he may not have a closer. By the way, Lidge is back. How many saves did Gordon get while he was on the DL?

Finally, it is always a challenge to be in a draft with Mr. Leaguer. He is the one guy we regularly price enforce against because bidding a buck more than Mr. Leaguer is probably a pretty decent deal. He didn’t have a great keeper list, but he’s got Rollins and Ramirez and Atkins, so how bad was it, really? As usual, he’s got 6 pitchers for a total of $8, but he’s better at doing that than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s got enough hitting, and he’ll fix his pitching. He’s Mr. Leaguer. Of course he’s going to win it all.

More Buck, On Opening Day

It’s opening day, and despite the Giants performing about as well as we all expected (take the under 72.5 games, the UNDER), and despite Kerry Wood getting crushed today, it’s a wonderful day of baseball. Today I finally finished David Halberstam’s “October, 1964” a history of the 1964 baseball season which finished with the Cardinals defeating the Yankees in 7 games.

I remember that world series well, and I even kept a scrapbook, at least for 3 or 4 games. I remember cutting out the picture of Mickey’s walk off homer in to the upper deck in right field in Yankee Stadium off knuckle ball pitcher Barney Schultz. It was the end of an era for the Yankees, and just the beginning for the Bob Gibson led Cardinals.

Bob Uecker played for the Cardinals that season, by the way, though he never made it into the World Series. At least he’s in the Hall of Fame, which is more than Tim McCarver, the first string catcher can say.

There are some interesting stories about the racism faced by the black ballplayers of that era, and Buck O’Neil is mentioned quite a bit. He was the Cubs scout who signed, among others, Lou Brock, whose trade in 1964 to the Cards was the critical piece in their pennant drive.

Halberstam wrote the book in 1994, before Buck was well known. Yet despite not being a significant character in the story, the last lines in the Epilogue are about him. Here are more words from one of the most eloquent fans of Buck. We should all take a moment and think of Buck O'Neil on opening day, and if somehow you haven't read Joe Posnanski's "The Soul of Baseball", well what the hell are you waiting for.

Those last words of "October, 1964":

Buck O’Neil finally retired after scouting for many years for the Cubs. He remained in Kansas City, where he had made his home when he played and managed for the Monarchs and where he now runs the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame. Interviewing him was one of the singular pleasures that came with writing this book.

Keeper Shmeeper

I really don’t have time to do this, but I know you all are counting on me to explain what happened yesterday. We here at Sour Grapes aim to please.

Before I begin, I need to make a statement. When I write these recaps of keeper lists and the auction itself, it is obviously from the perspective of our vision of value. As a result, our team always looks better to us because we follow OUR values, and you guys don’t. It is a standard rule of fantasy sports that our own teams look better to us the next day than we expect, because we are using our own valuation methods to evaluate our teams.

That doesn’t mean our values are right. We bid $26 on Tom Gordon last year. The bastard who bid $25 shut up. We bid $39 on Andruw Jones. Why in hell didn’t the guy who bid $38 realize what a bargain he would be at $40?

After last season’s Auction Recap, I asked Mr. Leaguer what he thought. He said we seemed to spend a lot of time bragging about how good our team was. That was certainly not my intent. I tried to write a piece about the auction that recounted what happened, but obviously it was from our perspective, and used our opinions and valuations. And I wanted to discuss our strategy and how it worked out.

By the nature of the beast, our team looked pretty good to us based on our opinions and valuations. Duh. Plus, your teams looked a little worse to us because for some stupid reason we can’t understand, none of you seem to agree with us about everything. BTW, several teams including Mr. Leaguer said they rated our team near the top.

Up until we got Rotolab, which uses Shandler’s values, we actually created our own values for each and every player. Starting last season, we’re using the Shandler values, with about 10% of the players modified by us. So there is some level of independence in the values we use, though we have put some of our opinions back in. Still, things are going to look better to us than they are…unless we’re actually right.

So here are my keeper observations.

I ran all the keepers through Rotolab. I assumed that Larry will keep Kouzmanoff (he won’t) and throw back Andy LaRoche (he won’t). This actually helps his current valuation by a few bucks because Rotolab shows a profit for Kouz and a small loss for LaRoche because of his injury. Of course, in a keeper league, it’s not all about 2008.

We also assumed that the Cartel will activate Votto as their 10th player. It’s hard to imagine he’s going to be sent down.

Here is what we get.

There are 3 teams with profits between $80 and $90 – Cartel, the defending champion Bums and … us. Kerry Wood is now valued with a profit of $11, and this pushed us into the top group. Of these three teams, the Bums have spent the most money, which means they will be less affected by inflation than us.

There are 3 more teams with profits between $60 and $70, and I would consider them all to be serious contenders. These are the Falkuhns, the Cappers and the Old Rips. We thought the Falkuhns and the Cappers would actually be up in the top group, but the Falkuhns’ extension of Hermida to $15 and the Cappers decision to keep Snell and throw back Duncan depressed their ending profits a little more than we expected.

All of the teams except the Old Rips have some saves, have a couple of starters, and have at least a good start on steals. The Old Rips have no saves yet, and they have only Jake Peavy as a starting pitcher. As for power hitting, all of the teams except the Cartel are projected to already have over 100 homers and 400 RBI’s. The Cartel only has 4 hitters kept, so they have a lot of spending yet to do.

Speaking of spending, these 6 teams have the following money left to spend: Cartel $211, Old Rips 197, Pecklers $191, Cappers $186, Falkuhns $156 and Bums $142. The Falkuhns will have $13 more if they keep LaRoche instead of Kouz. These stats favor the teams with the least to spend, because there is some fierce inflation out there. And on this score, I warn you all that there is a plan circulating among what may well be a majority of the teams to close FAAB until mid-May beginning in 2009. It is almost a certainty that we will have a rules meeting before next season.

The next group of teams range from plus $30-40: the Busch Leaguers, the Pounders and Hobo Artillery. All of these teams have a couple of pieces, but they all only kept 6 or 7 players. They all have a fair amount left to spend: $165, $184 and $200 respectively. This is NOT a good thing, given the monster inflation out there. Mr. Leaguer and Joe Cool will be hard pressed to repeat their high finishes from last season, but they are both seasoned veterans, and should be watched carefully at the auction. As for the Hoboboys, well good luck, guys.

The Lickers made some deals with their draft picks to swing from negative to positive in profits. And they are the only team to have two catchers. That ought to do it for them.

Kenny9 has $210 to spend, which makes him very dangerous, particularly to us because he has pledged to screw us out of Marmol, no matter what the cost. I believe that he will be soliciting you all for a new place to live when this happens.

Finally, new Mr. Melonhead. He’s got the most money, $218, to spend. We don’t know him, we don’t know what to expect, and he’s filling some big shoes. Well, they were old shoes. Good luck, man – you’re gonna need it this year.

A few surprises, at least to us. I’m not sure we would have extended Hermida. Those farm extensions from $5 to $15 are tricky, and we face decisions next season on Pence and Loney. The same could be said about the Bums extending Milledge, who we wish to remind you all, they got from US in a deal that Mr. Leaguer called “preposterous.” We were pretty sure Cartel would bump Hamels, which is the most dangerous decision of the three.

We would have kept Duncan instead of Snell. Snell gets another year, but Duncan has the most profit in him.

I had to go look up Ryan Ludwick, kept at $6 by Hobo. I can’t imagine he would have gone for much more.

We thought the Pounders would keep Rowand. In fact, they threw back Rowand and kept Feliz, which is probably more of a statement about the Giants as it is about the Pounders.

I’m looking forward to seeing who the Bums buy as starting pitchers. We guessed they’d keep Hampton at a buck instead of Chipper at $29. Chipper had a great season last year, but that could be the move we look back to at the end of the season for good or for bad.

We struggled with whether to keep Nick Johnson. We surely hated to throw him back after donating a $5 Kaz Matsui to the Bums last year. In the end, Johnson simply won the job over a guy who is Mo Vaughnish, a diabetic, and a serious injury waiting to happen. I’d be curious as to what the others in the league would have done. I know that Mr. Leaguer traded for him in the big LA league and then threw him back, though he had a lot of good keepers there. I just wish the Giants would trade for him (I put the full court press on Larry B. on this score). It would be bad for the Pecklers, but good for the Giants. One of the great questions of the Auction on Friday will be what Oatmeal goes for.

Finally, what do Brian Wilson, Kyle Kendrick and Manny Parra have in common? They are the only 09X players kept. The Pecklers spent a lot of money last season grazing among the potential 09X players, and kept no one, though we came close on Keppinger. We were surprised no one would bite on him for a 2nd round pick, which convinced us to toss him back.

Under Fire

No baseball here.

Hillary Clinton’s gaffe this week about her claims that she came under hostile sniper fire in Bosnia while first lady has me bugged.

She claimed multiple times, both in a speech and in interviews, that she and little Chelsea had to run for cover as soon as they landed for a visit in 1996. "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Ooops. There’s video. And witnesses. Sinbad, who was there, noted: “I think the only ‘red phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’”

The Junior Senator from NY did a 180, admitting she had “made a mistake.” It turns out, she misspoke.

There is the word that gets me. “Misspoke.” Did anything at all like this happen anywhere at any time to her? Like maybe in South Africa in 1994, or in Lebanon in 1997 or in Afghanistan in 1999? If at some point, if she really had to run across a tarmac dodging bullets, I can buy that she may have made a mistake and misspoke about the incident.

But if nothing like that ever had happened to her, that’s not a mistake. That is not misspeaking. If I had ever had to dodge bullets in a foreign country, I’d remember that. And if I never had to do that (I haven’t) but said I did, I’d either be lying or hallucinating.

I’m guessing she’s lying. The whole focus of her campaign is that she is the Democrat of experience, and she’s only talking about this trip to demonstrate her foreign policy experience. Personally, I don’t buy her qualifying as experienced because she was the first lady of the US for 8 years and the first lady of Arkansas for 10. Her only public display of involvement in the Clinton administration was her miserable failure to get anything connected to health care reform passed.

But she did hug some little kid at an airport in Bosnia. There you go – ready to be commander-in-chief on day one. Proof positive. Imagine what John McCain will do with her phony sniper experience. After all, he really was put in a box in the Hanoi Hilton for 6 years.

On the other hand, maybe we ought to consider that hallucinating thing. She did tell the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that she was “sleep-deprived” which caused her to misspeak. Uh, let's go back to the lying excuse. After all, would you want a sleep-deprived Hillary Clinton to be picking up the Red Phone at 3 AM?

Lottery Winners?

From the Chicago Tribune: “Piniella also announced Tuesday he would announce his closer by the end of this week. Kerry Wood, the probable closer, will pitch back-to-back outings for the first time this spring Wednesday and Thursday.”

We should know by tomorrow night if our $3 Mr. Wood will be the closer for the Cubbies to start the season. He’s been excellent since his second outing this spring, and if he can pitch well on Thursday, his first back-to-back game, he’s in.

Nothing beats a cheap closer. Except, as the Cartel would point out, two of them. Change Wood’s projected pitching value to $25 from $2, and the Pecklers move up into the top group of keeper lists, with the Cartel, the Bums, the Rips and the Cappers.

Not the Falkuhns? Still waiting on that trade, Mr. Dot. I'm sure it will be a doozy.

Good trade yesterday between the Bums and Any 9 for both teams. The Bums look like they will go with $1 Mike Hampton as their #10 (it still leaves Saito as #11, and they might keep him). So they traded part of that deep, cheap pitching staff, John Maine, for the #1 pick in the minor league draft. They could afford to give away their 2 draft picks, as they have Schierholz and another minor league guy I’ve never heard of that they want to keep.

Any 9 gets a quality pitcher at a good price ($10) for 2 years (yeah, right, like anyone could stay on Kenny 9’s roster for 2 full years besides Ryan Howard), and he also gets a third draft pick. He’ll now be picking 12, 13 and 24.

Where are those other trades? Lotsa talk, no action.

-30- +1

OK, I was wrong, but I was close. There was a wake for McNulty. I was right about that. He just wasn’t dead. Now how could I guess that alternative?

I loved the final episode. We got to see

There were some incredible lines:

Norman – “The Commissioner is about to have a Come to Damascus moment.”

Rawls – “You’re a cunt hair away from being indicted.”

Vinson - "That sentimental motherfucker just cost us money."

And of course, the piece de resistance, Jay Landsman (the actor who played Jay Landsman, not the real Jay Landsman, who was also an actor in the series but who wasn't a good enough jay Landsman to play Jay Landsman) providing the ultimate eulogy for McNulty. Here it is in its entirety:

He was the black sheep, a permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses and none was given. He learned no lessons; he acknowledged no mistakes; he was as stubborn a Mick as ever stumbled out of the Northeast parish just to take up a patrolman's shield. He brooked no authority. He did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say, and in the end he gave me the clearances. He was natural police. And I don't say that about many people, even when they're here on the felt. I don't say that often unless it happens to be true. Nat'ral po-lice. But Christ, what an asshole.

And I'm not talking about the ordinary gaping orifice that all of us possess. I mean an all-encompassing, all-consuming, out-of-proportion-to-every-other-facet-of-his-humanity chasm — if I may quote Shakespeare — "from whose bourn no traveler has ever returned." He gave us thirteen years on the line. Not enough for a pension. But enough to know that he was, despite his negligible Irish ancestry, his defects of personality, and his inconstant sobriety and hygiene, a true murder police. Jimmy, I say this seriously. If I was laying there dead on some Baltimore street corner, I'd want it to be you standing over me catchin' the case. Because brother, when you were good, you were the best we had.

Beautiful words, Sgt. Landsman. And If I am laying there dead on some San Francisco street corner, I hope Jay Landsman will provide the words of eulogy for me. Of course, I’m not “nat’ral po-lice”, but I am an asshole.

A guy is sitting at a bar. Suddenly the drunk guy next to him erupts: “All lawyers are assholes,” he growls. The first guy stares him down and says, “I resent that.” “What, are you a lawyer?” the drunk answers. “No, I’m an asshole.”

The Wire, RIP

The End

No, not of the blog. In just 5 hours, after 2 weeks of impatiently waiting, I’ll be watching the final episode of television’s greatest series, The Wire. If you haven’t been watching, and apparently that is a lot of you, well – you just don’t know. The best writing, the best acting, the best conception – it’s perfect. Perfect except it will soon be gone.

BEWARE – POTENTIAL SPOILER COMING

If somehow you are reading this on Sunday afternoon, before The Wire airs, you might not want to read the rest of this at this time.

When the season started in January, there were many articles in the media (the show, if nothing else, is a media darling) about The Wire and the then upcoming fifth and final season. In one of those articles (I’m guessing The New Yorker, but there were many), I saw a clue about something I anticipate we will see tonight. If you don’t want to see this, stop reading, you idiot, and come back tomorrow. You can see then if I’m right.

There was talk about a cast party after filming the last scene. I don’t know if it’s the last scene we will see, or if it’s the last scene they filmed (well, I know it is at least the latter). The article referred to a scene in a cop bar where a wake was being filmed. We saw one of those two or three seasons ago for a real cop who died who had a small part in the show and who must have been close to the creators. Anyway, what that meant was that somebody on the police force is going to die in tonight’s episode. My guess is McNulty. The way this show is, it really could be anyone, because we have become attached to so many characters. But the way things are reeling out of control for Jimmy McNulty, the main character (to the extent there is a main character – at least his name comes first in the credits), it seems obvious now, and it seemed obvious when I read that in January. Nothing has happened to change my mind.

Has any show ever killed off the main character? Of course, MASH killed off McLean Stevenson, but he was really #3, and he was leaving the show. I guess McNulty is leaving the show, or the show is leaving him, and so it is an easier idea to off him. But throughout the series history, and particularly this season, we have seen so many characters we’ve come to appreciate killed off: DeAngelo Barksdale, Frank Sobotka, Stringer Bell, Bodie, and in just the past few weeks Prop Joe, Omar and Snoop. Brilliantly drawn, brilliantly acted, each one so special, each killing powerful. But they were all from the bad guys side (actually it was never clear to me if Frank Sobotka was a bad guy). Tonight it’s gonna be one of the good guys (I think) and who knows, maybe lots of bad guys.

What I know is it’s going to be great, 93 minutes of great. I can’t wait. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, order up season 1 on Netflix. I own the first 4 seasons, and starting next week the boss and Max and I will start watching one more time from the beginning. But first, before we start at the beginning, we need to see the end. Thanks forever to David Simon and Ed Burns, the creators, and to the biggest, blackest, baddest cast ever assembled. BRILLIANT!

-30-

It Was Windy

This is a stat line that speaks for itself:

………….. IP..H…R…ER..BB..SO..HR
N Lowry 1….0…4…..4..…9….0…..0

Technically, it was a no hitter.

I’d say if the Bums were thinking about keeping him, they probably changed their mind yesterday.

Speaking of the Bums, they have hiding on their potential keeper list Mike Hampton at a buck. He’s looking like the #4 starter in Atlanta this season. The Braves are raving about him.

Beware the hype.

I Scream

I’ve been a bit busy these days, working 7 day weeks, so the blog is getting a little spotty. Here is a classic blog entry, a quick one based on an observation yesterday.

I was “on the road” yesterday, meeting with some big clients on the Peninsula. After a meeting in Los Gatos, I had a craving for some ice cream, and stopped at a Baskins nearby.

Of course, I was looking for my classic coffee ice cream with something crunchy. They had a seasonal flavor called “Tax Crunch” which had coffee ice cream, hunks of chocolate and rice crispies. A little weird, but close enough, and given the name, I felt it was made for me. I ordered a one scoop on a sugar cone. It was not one of those scoops you see in a marketing photo – you know, a big scoop and at the bottom of the scoop there is a bunch of ice cream sticking out in all directions that makes it look like they gave you a bunch more ice cream, and you’ve got to eat that extra fast before it falls off. Kind like this one above.

Nope, that’s not the one I got. The one I got makes this second one look like a real fresser (if you don’t know that word, they use it in Jewish delis to refer to the extra large size of something). It was basically a ping pong ball on top of a sugar cone. The Baskins' and Robbins' cost: $2.49. Are you freaking kidding me? Now I may be wrong, but can’t you just go to Safeway and buy a pint of fancy ice cream (maybe coffee and bacon bits?) and a box of sugar cones for around that? Talk about a high profit item for Jack and Marian’s! * **

*Jack and Marian’s was an incredible Jewish deli in Brookline, Mass for many, many years. The had the largest menu in the world, maybe three feet square, and they had every permutation and combination of sandwich you could imagine. Periodically on the menu there were starred (*) items. If you searched real hard, in the middle of the menu was a small note in very small type that said “starred (*) items indicate high profit items for Jack and Marian’s. Not popular items. High profit items. Great restaurant, RIP.

** In the spirit of my blogging hero, Joe Posnanski, I am moving to the asterisk system for asides.

Anyway, I’m probably sounding like my Grandpa Izzy*, complaining about the prices. He of course used to do full charge bookkeeping work for his business clients for $5 per month, and he did it with a fountain pen.

*Actually, Grandpa gave me some of the best advice I ever got. When I was interviewing for my first accounting job coming out of USF, I told him about the interviewing process. He put his arm around me and said “Don’t take less than $25 per week.” You laugh, but I consider that excellent advice.

Back to Baskins. You know their ice cream isn’t all that great. I don’t think I’ll be back any time soon. If I’m going to pay that ridiculous sum for an ice cream cone, it better be a fresser.

Closer to Auction Day

There will be a number of high priced closers available this season in the BABI draft. We assume that the following will be kept:

Capps - 5 (Cartel)
Corpas - 2 (Cartel)
Gregg – 5 (Hobo)
C. Cordero – 24 (Hobo, on a contract)
F. Cordero - 27 (Bats, probably)
Isringhausen – 24 (Pounders)
R. Soriano – 12 (Cappers)
Wilson – 11 (Falkuhns, nice FAAB pickup)

All of those team situations are settled for the moment, and the teams with the closers under $20 have a good leg up. In fact, we show the Cartel in the lead in value at the moment. If Lyon (see below) ends up closing for the DBacks, Geo's Cappers will be another team to be reckonned with. Having a cheap closer is the fantasy equivalent of winning the lottery.

The auction pool will likely include:

Saito (Bums have him at 28, we think he’ll go back)
Valverde
Wagner
Hoffman
Lidge
Gagne

All of these pitchers except Wagner have issues. And all of these guys are going to be costly.

Lidge just went under the knife, though for his knee, not his pitching arm. Who knows, though, what that will mean as the season wears on. Hoffman’s 2nd half went downhill, and he’s now 40. Valverde was great, but has been an injury risk throughout his short career. Saito was pristine, but he’s 38 and has Broxton breathing down his neck.

And of course there is Gagne. Milwaukee has a pretty nice team. I just can’t believe they threw $10 million at this guy. He is unlikely to be on the Pecklers this season, or any season. Of course, though we’re never wrong, we might be a little short on being right.

In Arizona, Lyon has been given first shot, and he will surely be kept at 2 by the Cappers. Pena and Qualls will be available. This one is a quagmire. If I were Geo, I’d buy the other 2 guys.

In Chicago we assume Kenny 9 will keep Howry at 8, and we’re going to keep Wood at 3 (we can hope, can't we?). Marmol will be available in auction. Maybe spring training will sort this out, but we might not know who the best bet is until the end of the season.

There are 6 BABI teams without a sure thing closer. It will be interesting to see if any of the teams chooses not to buy one. These guys are land mines, and they will be expensive. A few of them are bound to blow up. I like the idea of starting the auction by saying Eric Gagne, pitcher, Milwaukee, $1, just for fun.

Ralph Terry

Sorry, boys, I’ve been sick this week, and just don’t have the gumption to keep up with both the mountains of work and the mountains of phlegm in addition to the molehill that is this blog. But I did read something this week, that I’ll write about, and get back to it in a couple of days.

I’ve been reading historical sports books by great writers, and am currently working on some of the late, great David Halberstam’s baseball books. I’m in the middle of “October, 1964”, a recount of one of the greatest World Series ever between the Yankees and the Cardinals. It’s a wonderful period piece, and as a 12 year old Yankee fan at the time, it was a truly memorable series.

It was Mickey’s last series, during which he hit WS homer #18, a record that’s never going to be broken. Never. It was Gibson’s and Brock’s first, two guys who were incredible Series performers. It came at the end of the great Yankee run, and was in the early part of the National League’s dominance. Highly recommended.

In the middle is a great little story about Ralph Terry, who has a special connection to the Giants. Terry was the pitcher who won game 7 in 1962, getting McCovey to line out to Bobby Richardson with runners on second and third in the ninth to preserve a complete game 1-0 shutout. The story that Halberstam wrote that I love came a few years before his great triumph, when he was first signed out of a small town in Oklahoma by the same great agent, Tom Greenwade, who signed Mantle. Halberstam writes:

…He had even played on the same Baxter Springs team that Mickey Mantle had once played on, and in time Greenwade showed up at Terry’s home – a lean, older man driving a black Cadillac. Tom Greenwade, Terry thought, had a pretty good line when he dealt with country boys. “Ralph,” he said, “how would you like to play baseball in the biggest city in the world?” Terry liked that idea immediately, and he liked it even better when Greenwade told him that Terry’s timing could not be better. “Why, son, the Big Three (Raschi, Reynolds, and Lopat) are getting old. You’ll be coming up just in time.” And Terry loved the sound of Greenwade’s words, but with the confidence of the young, he believed them as well. He signed with the Yankees for a small bonus and was sent to Binghamton, New York, to play with one of the Yankee Class A teams.

Since Cooperstown was not very far away, he got permission from his manager to go over and watch the annual hall of Fame game there, where the Yankees were playing that day. Jim Turner, the Yankee pitching coach, recognized him and, because it was not a league game, told him it was all right to sit down at the end of the Yankee dugout.

Terry walked down to the end of the bench, where he found three very old men sitting together. Very full of himself, and sure that the big leagues were just around the corner, Terry introduced himself to the nearest of the men. “Hi, I’m Ralph Terry, and I’m pitching for the Binghamton Yankees,” he said, and the tone of his voice, he later decided, was more than a little cocky, implying that within a year or two he would be with the big-league club. The older man, one of the most courteous people Ralph Terry had ever met, said, “Well, Ralph, it certainly is a pleasure to meet you. Now, my name is Cy Young. And these fellas over here next to me are Zack Wheat and Ty Cobb.” Just as Terry decided that he was the youngest and biggest fool in professional baseball, Cy Young moved over a little closer, to sit next to him, and he talked pitching with him for the rest of the day.

That story probably took place in about 1954. Cy Young was born in 1867, so that would have made him 87. In fact, he died in 1955. What an incredible and lucky moment for any young man. As for Cobb, well let’s just leave it to Ray Liotta who as Shoeless Joe Jackson, said it best: “Ty Cobb wanted to play, but none of us could stand the son of a bitch when he was alive, so we told him to stick it!”

The Need for Crede

Grant over at McCovey Chronicles wrote something very funny yesterday. He linked to a San Jose Mercury article in which Aaron Rowand recommended the Giants trade for his former White Sox teammate, third baseman Joe Crede. Here is the quote that got to Grant:

The Giants might be able to get Crede without parting with a pitcher like Jonathan Sanchez. Outfielder Fred Lewis is out of options and generated interest with several teams this winter.

Although Crede will be a free agent after this season, the Giants consider him a potential long-term piece because they have no third-base prospects in the system. Crede might not be as athletic as the Giants would prefer - he has four stolen bases in 701 career games - but Rowand said his agility at third base ranks with that of Gold Glove fielders Scott Rolen and Eric Chavez.

Now lest we forget, Crede is the guy with the Pedro Feliz career statistics. And he's coming off surgery for a herniated disk. Ouch. He once hit 30 homers, but I believe Grant was not thrilled with giving up a lot for Crede. Grant imagines an interview between an unnamed reporter and Brian Sabean:

Sabean: We have three players with an outside shot of helping the next good Giants team. Let's send one to AAA, think about benching one in favor of Ray Durham and Rich Aurilia, and trade the last one for a one-year rental.

Reporter: Nice. What do you call this strategy?

Sabean: The Aristocrats!

You either get that or you don't. If you don't, I don't want you reading my blog any more.

Uh, actually my readers are scarce. Just go rent the movie The Aristocrats, and come back, any time.

Cheating Stats

Unless you are playing in a keeper league and you have an incredible keeper list, when the auction is over you are going to be short stats in some categories. Maybe you’ve got lots of power but not enough steals, or you’ve got plenty of saves but not enough starting pitching, or the starting pitching you’ve got isn’t very good. Something is going to be lacking.

Of course, you will have gotten more players you wanted that you expected. That is because you like some guys that others don’t so they go chepaer than you expect. And you’ll be happy, until your beloved Jim Bullinger goes out there and gets lit up like a nuclear reactor. But no matter how happy you are, your team is going to be missing some stuff that you will have to adjust for as you go along.

When Tom Gordon started to suck (I believe that is the technical phrase), we simply fell off the face of the earth in saves, and we never recovered. We even had made a point to purchase his likely replacement, Ryan Madson, but instead the Phillies came up with the brilliant and unexpected strategy of moving the really sucky Brett Myers to the bullpen. We had to punt saves, even though we had several guys who we hoped might garner a few. In 4x4, punting a category is virtually impossible.

Somewhere in the auction you’ve got to cheat. What I mean is that you have to pick areas that you simply don’t spend enough on, and use that extra money in some other area. We all do it, to some extent. That’s why a cheap closer is so valuable. The Bums had a $4 Valverde. They did purchase Saito for $28, giving them 12 saves points, but they could have used that $28 for more of the other things they might need, and then with the base of saves Valverde gave them, worked to pick up some more saves down the road. Since they ended up with plenty of everything, they are a bad example, but they sure had a great start on the saves category for almost no money.

Which gets me to the team I want to focus on, the one owned by the greatest BABI player ever, Mr. Leaguer. Year in, year out, he cheats on starting pitching. He usually has something like $11 for 7 players in the end game, and 6 of those players are pitching slots. The other is usually his backup catcher, though that was not true last season. And he seems to find some quality there, enough to fake it with his pitching categories at least for a while.

Mr. Leaguer went into the 2007 auction with 1 keeper at pitcher, Derek Lowe at $13. That’s it. No closers, no semi-closers, no #2. He bought the cheapest closer, the one everyone thought would be the first guy to lose his job, David Weathers. Weathers finished with 33 saves, an ERA for 3.59 and a WHIP of 1.21, way better than anyone had a right to hope. When he traded for Brad Lidge in mid-season, he was able get enough saves to finish with 6 points in the category.

He bought his other 8 pitchers (7 starters, 1 reliever at the start of the season) for $26. He had a total of $54 in his 10-man pitching staff. He had $226 to spend on hitting, though he only ended up spending $212, wasting $14 in an end game miscalculation. You can buy a lot of hitting for $226 (or even $212), particularly if you’ve got Hanley Ramirez kept at $11. Mr. Leaguer finished the season with 43 of a potential 48 points in hitting.

With his $54 pitching staff, he got 23.5 points. He finished in 3rd place with 66.5 points. Pretty impressive.

Of those 8 pitchers after the kept Lowe and his closer Weathers, only 1, Tom Gorzelanny, was actually any good. He got rid of all of the other 7 by July 24, via waiver or trade. When we traded Derek Lee and Cliff Floyd to him for Carlos Gomez and Tony Clark, he demanded that we give him Carlos Villenueva for a bum of his choice, John Suppan. We actually kept the $4 Suppan for a few weeks, but he was creating a bad odor in our ERA and WHIP and wasn’t actually getting any wins, so we waived him.

At the beginning of last season, do you remember how Matt Morris and Braden Looper started out hot as in “hot hot hot”? Mr. Leaguer was looking pretty brilliant at the end of April, but he ended up waiving Morris in June and Looper in July. He waived Livan in July as well, and found a sucker for Claudio Vargas. His only non-starter, Kevin Correia, was a call option on the Giants’ closer role for a buck. We had the same thought. Mr. Leaguer was right about Buttmondo, but Correia never got a chance. He traded him as a throw in to the Rips, who soon waived him. When he got into the Giants’ rotation in August, the Pecklers picked him up in a desperate attempt to chase wins. He pitched well, and now he’s a starter who would have been kept at a buck.

The point is for the most part, these guys all sucked, and yet he squeezed 23.5 points out of that staff. Pitching, unlike hitting, can be fixed, at least a little. But man, it takes some major league cajones to spend only $26 on 8 pitchers. Mr. Leaguer does it every year. And every year he’s got lots of hitting. He cheats his pitching, and works that side of his roster to make it good. And if he actually hits on a few of those guys, he’s in the race for first. Last year he didn’t do so well, so he only finished third.

That’s a shame.

He's got only 1 pitching keeper again for 2008, Gorzellany at $7. You watch, he'll do it again.

Balance, Daniel-San

Several years ago the Pickled Pecklers proposed that all the teams in BABI throw in all their cards and start over. There is so much inflation that has built up over time, we thought it would be fun to have a complete auction where everyone starts exactly even. The owners debated this mightily, and then we were mightily hooted down.

I specifically remember a conversation with Mr. Leaguer in which he explained what he liked best about our game. He said that the most challenging aspect of keeper-style fantasy sports is to balance the needs of the current season against the needs of future seasons.

Toward the end of the season those still in the race trade away some of their future for an improved chance at the present. In many years, dump trades have indeed ruined teams for the next year. The deals will, generally, improve the futures of the dumpers, though less than they would hope. This is the most obvious and dramatic moment of adjusting the balance between years.

Each spring we face those questions as well. Contract extensions require evaluations of the needs of this year against the needs of next season. Mr. Leaguer faces an extension decision on Hanley Ramirez, currently at 11-08. 16-09C? 21-10C? 26-11C? There is no right answer. Well, no, that’s not right either. There is a right answer, and we’ll be able to confirm it in October, 2011. In the meantime, Mr. Leaguer has to decide just how much in profits in 2008 he’s willing to sacrifice for future years.

The Pecklers have already decided to extend Eric Byrnes from 13-08 to 18-09C. Hitters are usually a lot easier than pitchers. But now we’re evaluating Adam Wainwright.

CARTWRIGHT!

Wainwright is currently at 4-08. We got a trade feeler this week for him, and the feeler said he assumed we would extend him. It’s a close call, and when you are talking about pitching, close calls should more often than not be decided against the extension. We asked this question on Shandler’s forum area, and got some interesting responses.

Two guys writing for HQ both responded that we should extend him to $9. They saw this move as buying an extra year, and we’d still have a “nice profit” as they each put it. Let’s assume he’s worth somewhere between $13 and $16. Big profit for one year, smaller profit for two years.

Then a fellow named Kevin wrote an intriguing entry leaning against extension. I quote:

I think that you should not. Ignoring any discount rate applied to future seasons (which I generally do not ignore), if we call Wainwright a $15 in your format (that's what the custom valuator says), if you have him for $4 this year that's $11 in profits. If you have him for $9 this year and next, that's $12 in profits. Virtually identical, and you still need to factor in:

- The discount rate, which like I said before, I generally don't ignore completely

- The fact that you lose the ability to cut Wainwright should he implode on you this year. I watched it happen to my arch-rival with Jose Lima in 2000. It was an unmitigated catastrophe for him not to be able to get Lima off of his roster. Wainwright had a nice year overall, but he also has the power to suck for extended stretches - his ERA though his first 10 games last year was 5.59. All I'm saying is, do not underestimate the value of the put option, especially in a close decision.

Fantastic advice, I think, and against what I would call the conventional wisdom. His reference to the put option is so easily ignored with pitchers. Hitters can’t hurt you too much, but pitchers can be painful. Geo believes you should virtually never extend a starting pitcher, possibly for just that reason. He got awfully lucky last season when he extended Myers. As bad as the Cappers season was last year, it could have been a lot worse.

I also suggested in the forum that we have a competitive keeper list. I hear you: “There the Pecklers go again, pumping up their keeper list.” We base this on having both Pence (The Glassman) and Loney at $5 contracts this year, both likely to be $15 in 2009, plus we have our pitching anchor, Webb, entering the last year of his contract. We have to have a good chance this year, and run with it, because we can see some major negatives for 2009 unless we draft brilliantly. BRILLIANT!

To this, Kevin added: You're telling me you have a competitive keeper roster. Then try to win this year! The decision is close, save that $5 and spend it on upgrading a $15 hitter to a $20 hitter!

We followed this once. We had a great keeper list, and we didn’t extend anyone. We used all that extra money in the draft. We had a great team that season, but we ended up with almost nobody we could trade. When our team got a lot of injuries near the end, we couldn’t fix things, and we finished second. Some of those guys we could have extended would have still been tradable. It was a mistake, and it was the closest we ever came to winning it all.

Of course, in order to be able to be the recipient of dump deals, you have to have some guys dumpers want. You can’t just have a bunch of players at the right prices. So in some respects having that extra $5 can be a negative, because it doesn’t force you to find a couple of those cheap guys who might have great trade value.

We’re not decided on Wainwright. He’s probably not very tradable at $9-09C. He’s probably a good keeper in 2009 at that price, though. And we want to find the right balance between 2008 and 2009. We always want to be competitive. Of course, we want to win it all, too. And when we do, we’re going out for real food after the season, food that the Bums will say “I’m glad the Pecklers won so we don’t have to eat that fru-fru crap.”

A Little Trick With Nick

Bonana Fanna Fo Fanna.

Can we all agree that despite all the protestations of “good chemistry” and “aggressiveness” and “speed” that the Giants’ offense is going to stink this season?

Here is the projected lineup according to Lefty, give or take one crappy player for another:

LF- Roberts/Davis
3B - Frandsen
RF - Winn
C - Molina
CF - Rowand
2B - Durham
1B - Ortmeier
SS - Vizquel
Pitcher

The rush to Momo’s after the bottom of the sixth may result in several deaths by trampelling this season.

I know all the Giant fans like various pieces, but allow me to insult you all by stating my feeling: the Giants have 2 guys in that lineup who are legitimate starting players (Rowand and Molina) and one (Winn) who is acceptable if the rest of the lineup is good. Is Molina the worst cleanup hitter in baseball? Is Winn the worst #3 hitter in baseball? As for the rest, well, everyone else is a throw away piece, or in the case of Frandsen and Ortmeier, a questionable project.

That’s my opinion, and I’m never wrong, although to paraphrase Henry Fonda in “In Harm’s Way”, I have been known to be a little short on bein’ right.

Based on reports, there is a deal to be made that can help. Washington’s best two hitters both play first base. Nick Johnson, out all of 2007 with a broken leg, appears healthy again. Meanwhile, the Nats signed his 2007 all-star replacement, 2007 NL Comeback Player of the Year Dmitri Young, to a $10 million two year extension this winter. They are scheduled to pay Johnson $5.5 million in 2008 and 2009. If Johnson is really healthy, one of them has to go.

So how about Johnson at first base for the Giants? Say for a couple of these young guys: Davis, Lewis, Ortmeier, Schierholtz, Sanchez, etc. etc. etc., come on, who cares?

First of all, the Giants can afford it, moneywise. Remember, I keep pounding on the fact that the Giants have money, real money, as a result of this huge (and hugely unreported) TV deal with Comcast in which they now own around 30% of Fox Sports Net. OK, they aren’t the Yankees, but this moves them up to around 5th or so in cash flow. The CEO of Comcast told the Giants: “I gave you all this money, and all you’ve bought so far is Aaron Rowand?”

Second, if he’s healthy, Nick Johnson can play. In the 500 at bats he had in 2006 before he was injured, he had 23 homers, 46 doubles, 77 RBIs, 100 runs and was hitting .290/.428/.520. And just for kicks, he had 10 steals. And he’s only 29 years old. Why not take the chance?

That might make the lineup, as I would order it:

LF- Roberts/Davis/et.al.
RF – Winn
CF – Rowand
1B - Johnson
C - Molina
2B - Durham
3B - Frandsen
SS - Vizquel
Pitcher

Better. We even have that L-R-L-R thing going in the middle of the lineup (ok, S-R-L-R, but close enough). Make a deal for Crede or possibly a legitimate third baseman, and maybe the crowd will stay to the eighth inning. And the crowd will buy an extra 5,000 beers at the ballpark instead of Momos, so the deal actually pays for itself.

Johnson is back. The Nats are dying to do a deal. It’s mostly a matter of money, which is the Giants’ only long suit.

Hey, their offense is still going to stink. But we can’t really go into the season without a single player who is sure to hit 15 homers. Plus Johnson is another legitimate piece, like Rowand and Molina. Come on, Sabes – make the call.

And now, back to Shirley Ellis and The Name Game. Let’s do Chuck!

Ultimate Pitching

I want to follow up about Johan Santana’s value this year and the value and consistency of super starting pitchers. There will be a lot of historical pitching lines in this piece, but I’d like to start with a challenge: Here are the pitching lines of a Hall of Famer in consecutive years. Can you name him? Answer at the end, but try this, and don’t peek!

Year 1 – 323 IP, 23 Wins, 1.75 ERA, 1.075 WHIP
Year 2 – 326 IP, 24 Wins, 2.01 ERA, 1.079 WHIP

Pretty fantastic, and incredibly consistent. I’ll even give you a hint: He was 21 and 22 years old in these years. That makes these lines more than pretty fantastic.

On to Santana. I’m going to admit something that I am not embarrassed about. Until this summer, I didn’t know who he was. Really. I really do follow baseball, but as I have said many times, I only follow NL baseball (baseball and NL baseball is redundant). AL? Feh. I was not conscious of a guy who won the Cy Young award 2 of the last 4 years until the Twinkies were negotiating with NL teams. So I had to look up his figures in Baseball Reference to understand what they were talking about. Here are the last 4 years:

2004 – 228 IP, 20-6, 2.61 ERA, 0.921 WHIP – Cy Young
2005 – 231 IP, 16-7, 2.87 ERA, 0.971 WHIP – 3rd in CY
2006 – 233 IP, 19-6, 2.77 ERA, 0.997 WHIP – Cy Young
2007 – 219 IP, 15-13, 3.33 ERA, 1.073 WHIP – 5th in CY

These are some pretty great stats, in a league where they have a DH instead of a pitcher hitting in the lineup. 2007 was a drop in every category, and yet, unless you really did pay $42, you’d be fairly happy with those numbers up to around $30. I don’t know if there were injuries that caused the drop off, but the Mets seemed comfortable giving him their Swiss bank account. I imagine they are expecting a return to the sub-3 ERA and sub-1 WHIP form.

(Note: WHIP for you non fantasy types is hits plus walks divided by innings. A WHIP of 1.00 is spectacular.)

I am particularly impressed with those sub-1 WHIP numbers. With enough innings, that can really hold a fantasy pitching staff together, even with a few Bullingers thrown in. In looking at some of the great pitchers of the past 20 years, even in some of their greatest seasons, you won’t see too many sub-1 WHIPs, even with low 2 ERAs.

That’s one of the things that made Maddux so special. Though he hasn’t been sub-1 for a while, even in 2007, at the age of 41, with an ERA of 4.14, Maddux had a 1.242 WHIP, which is pretty darn good. And that was his highest WHIP since 1990!

With Roger Clemens in the news, I took a look at some of his best seasons. I’m particularly interested in his consistency from year to year, because if you’re going to bid huge on someone after a great season, I’d like to get some idea on what you can count on. Clemens was pretty good at back to back seasons:

1986 – 254 IP, 24-4, 2.48 ERA, 0.969 WHIP
1987 – 281 IP, 20-9, 2.97 ERA, 1.175 WHIP

1990 – 228 IP, 21-6, 1.93 ERA, 1.082 WHIP
1991 – 271 IP, 18-10, 2.62 ERA, 1.047 WHIP

1997 – 264 IP, 21-7, 2.05 ERA, 1.030 WHIP
1998 – 234 IP, 20-6, 2.65 ERA, 1.095 WHIP

Roger won the Cy Young in five of those seasons. He was runner-up in 1990 to this line:

1990 – 238 IP, 27-6, 2.95 ERA, 1.22 WHIP

That’s Bob Welch, for those of you playing along in the home version of our game. Roger kicked his ass in every category except wins. I’d be inclined to take that sub 2 ERA from Roger on my fantasy team. But kudos to Welch, who I didn’t realize had a year like that in him. He pitched for the A’s that year, and followed his masterpiece season with a record of 12-13. Just in time for those fantasy players to bid $32.

I had in my head that Ron Guidry had one ridiculous season in him. I was right:

1978 – 273 IP, 25-3, 1.74 ERA, 0.946 WHIP

I particularly like the high IP, which makes those great ERA and WHIP numbers monsters. He followed it up with an 18-8 season with great numbers, finishing 3rd to Mike Flanagan and Tommy John in the Cy Young voting. All of his numbers were better except his won-loss record (Flanagan and John had over 20 wins). Guidry also had 2 saves that year.

Randy Johnson, the pre-eminent power pitcher since Nolan Ryan retired, had that streak of Cy Young seasons. Here are a couple of back to back seasons that are pretty spectacular:

1997 – 213 IP, 20-4, 2.28 ERA, 1.052 WHIP – 2nd to Clemens in CY
1998 – 244 IP, 19-11, 3.28 ERA, 1.183 WHIP – N/A, switched from AL to NL

2001 – 249 IP, 21-6, 2.49 ERA, 1.009 WHIP – won NL CY
2002 – 260 IP, 24-5, 2.32 ERA, 1.031 WHIP – won NL CY

Great numbers, though I guess the power pitchers must give up a few more walks than the finesse pitchers. That had to be a great Cy Young race in 1997 – uh, nope. Not even close. Clemens got 25 first place votes, Johnson got only 2. The difference wasn’t strikeouts – Clemens had 292, Johnson 291. Interestingly, somebody else might have even had a better year in 1997, the NL Cy Young winner, Pedro Martinez, who had a phenomenal run from 1997-2000:

1997 – 241 IP, 17-8, 1.90 ERA, 0.932 WHIP – won NL CY
1998 – 233 IP, 19-7, 2.89 ERA, 1.091 WHIP – 2nd to Clemens in AL CY
1999 – 213 IP, 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 0.923 WHIP – won AL CY
2000 – 217 IP, 18-6, 1.74 ERA, 0.737 WHIP – won AL CY

Man, look at those numbers in 2000! The league ERA in 2000 was 5.07. The next best WHIP (Mussina) in the AL that year was 1.178. As it turns out, Pedro is 3rd all-time with a 1.030 WHIP behind 2 guys no one can remember who pitched at the beginning of the 20th century. I’ve never looked at this list before. Maddux, who I assumed was way up there, is 46th. Marichal was 17th, Koufax 22nd, Seaver 30th. Schilling is 44th, Johnson is 76th, Smoltz is 82nd and Clemens is 86th. And it’s always good to know how ol’ Cy Young did. Pretty fantastic, given the ridiculous number of innings he pitched – he is 35th at 1.130.

Coming full circle, here is an important stat: Johan Santana is 16th. He’s second among active pitchers behind Pedro. He has the advantage of still being young. Maddux’s WHIP has increased over the last 10 years from its pristine level in the early part of his career. I’m sure he used to be way up on that list. This is one of the critical things you are buying when you say $42, or whatever on Santana. He’s a guy whose bad WHIP year is 1.073. And he’s only 28, just coming into his prime pitching years.

I think that’s enough pitching stats for today. So here is the answer to who that guy is at the top of this piece. It’s Babe Ruth. What a stud. And by the way, he’s 70th on that WHIP list and 14th in career ERA at 2.28. And just for kicks, he hit 714 homers. Those years were in 1916 and 1917, when he was still with the Red Sox. Remember this the next time you decide to go see No No Nanette.

Johan Santana, P, Mets - $42

The one monster player that went from the AL to the NL this off season is new Met, Johan Santana. So what is he worth in BABI?

Shandler projects the following numbers:

232 IP
20-6 W-L record
2.87 ERA
1.03 WHIP

Let’s compare that to our last two Cy Young winners:

2007 Jake Peavy

223 IP
19-6 W-L record
2.54 ERA
1.06 WHIP

2006 Brandon Webb

235 IP
16-8 W-L record
3.10 ERA
1.13 WHIP

I was ready to say that those are amazing numbers being projected for Santana, and they certainly are, but I realize that Peavy was equally good in 2007. Webb was somewhat worse in all categories, though taking the hitters’ paradise that he pitches in compared to the others, it was quite a fine year.

Shandler calls Santana’s numbers worth $42 in standard Rotisserie. This is before taking inflation into account. I can’t imagine that is right. Nobody would pay $42 for those numbers without taking into account inflation. First, there is the risk. Second, there is the risk. Third, there is no way that is worth $42. And of course, there is always the risk.

Here is what might be worth $42:

336 IP
31-6 W-L record
1.96 ERA
0.905 WHIP

Yeah, I’d pay $42 for that. Man, look at those innings! Now that’s a staff anchor!

If you are wondering, that is 1968 AL MVP Denny McLain’s incredible season. And if McLain was a free agent after that season, would you still pay $42 for 1969? Uh….I don’t think so. And for those of you wondering, here are his 1969 stats:

325 IP
24-9 W-L record
2.80 ERA
1.092 WHIP

That’s a pretty good year following a 336 inning all-time great season. Those ERA and WHIP figures are worth a LOT more because of the huge number of innings pitched. If I had paid $42 for his 1969 numbers, I guess I would have been pretty happy with the result.

By the way, in 1970 he pitched 91 innings, going 3-5. So if you had paid the $42 in 1969 and were happy, and then kept him for 1970, your team probably finished in last place.

Just for kicks, I’d like to look at a few other great seasons from that era. Here are 3 of them. Can you identify them? They all won Cy Young awards, and the first two were MVPs. The third was 5th in the MVP voting.

304 IP
22-9 W-L record
1.12 ERA
0.853 WHIP

311 IP
25-5 W-L record
1.88 ERA
0.875 WHIP

346 IP
27-10 W-L record
1.97 ERA
0.993 WHIP

The first has a stat that makes it pretty identifiable. Bob Gibson led the Cardinals to the World Series with that ridiculous ERA in 1968. The league ERA, though, was 2.90, and resulted in the pitching mound being lowered. Yaz won the AL batting crown hitting 301 that season, his triple crown year. He was the only player to hit over .300 in that league. Pete Rose won the NL crown batting .335 and beating out the brothers Alou (Matty and Felipe finished 2 and 3).

The second set of stats is Sandy Koufax at the height of his powers, pitching for the World Champion Dodgers in 1963. His WHIP in his last 5 years was: 1.036, 0.875, 0.928, 0.855 and 0.985. Whoa! That seems untouchable, but the great WHIP master of the current era, Greg Maddux, actually had a 5 year run from 1994-1998 that is comparable: 0.896, 0.811, 1.033, 0.946, 0.980. Here I am comparing Maddux to Koufax. With all the hubbub about Roger Clemens, we don’t completely appreciate Maddux’s greatness.

That last guy didn’t win the MVP. It’s a famous season, so maybe you’ve got it figured out. The reason he didn’t win the MVP is that his team, the 1972 Phillies only won 59 games. That is Steve Carlton’s savant season, in which he won almost half his team’s games. Look at those innings! How could guys pitch so many innings and have such outrageous numbers?

Would you pay $42 for those seasons? I say for sure, and the main reason is those innings. If you are wondering if you should pay $42 after those seasons for the next season, Gibson followed with 20 wins, Koufax went 19-5 in 1964, and Carlton LOST 20 games in 1973. I wonder how many Hall of Fame pitchers lost 20 games in a season, particularly after 1930. It’s got to be a short list.

So what is Santana worth? No way we’re going to pay $42. But let’s not forget – we’ve got 25%+ inflation on top of everything. So if he’s worth $35,that is really $44. And that is the price The Elder Barry claims he’s going to bid in a preempt bid. Will anyone say $45?

Maybe, if he guarantees 300 innings this season.

The Todd Linden Rule

In today’s paper we saw the following item involving a Pickled Peckler:

Padres agreed to terms with first baseman Tony Clark on a one-year, $900,000 contract. Not exactly the two-year, $3 million deal the Diamondbacks reportedly offered him. Clark will primarily provide a power threat off the bench, but also could spell Adrian Gonzalez at first from time to time. He's a switch hitter, but is really only effective against righties, and would have been better off pouncing on Arizona's offer.

Clark turned down the DBacks’ offer of something like $3 million over 2 years. What a freakin’ idiot.

This not only hurt him, it hurt us too. We have Clark on our potential keeper list, with a $2 contract through 2009. Here is his 2007 stats for Arizona:

17 Homers, 51 RBIs, .249 BA. He hit .286 after the All Star break. Ordinarily, 17 homers with a batting average north of the Mendoza line represents an instant keeper at 2 bucks. We figured he was almost a sure keeper as long as he signed in the NL. However, we’ve got a couple of problems:

First, we have Loney inked in to the 1B spot. We also have Nick Johnson at $10 on our roster. Before you start laughing, he’s ready to go. Here is a late January report:

Nick Johnson finally has no remaining physical limitations after a series of surgeries on his broken right leg, and he'll battle Dmitri Young for the first base job this spring. "Nick, even when Soriano was here, was the most productive player we had because of his on-base percentage," manager Manny Acta said. "That prolongs innings, prolongs games. It wins games. It's huge. He has so much value for us."

Johnson had 23 homers and 10 steals while hitting .290 in 2006. We have all of spring training to see how he looks, but we’re hoping he’ll be keepable. So that makes 2 first basemen for us. Clark would be three, meaning we’d have to slot him at non-corner utility.

As for Clark, he can still mash. Don’t forget, he hit 30 homers in 2005. But he’s moving to a team with an all-star at first (Adrian Gonzalez), and to a park where some of those homers are going to disappear. You’ve got to temper his projected stats. Let’s assume 10 homers, 40 RBIs and .245 BA. Is that worth $2 as a keeper?

Not on the Bums or the Falkuhns. Yes on Any 9 and the Bats, two teams short on keepers. So how about us?

We have 7 sure keepers plus Ryan Zimmerman and Nick Johnson. Unless we make a deal, we’re probably not going to hit 10 keepers, so there is a roster spot for Clark. Ten homers for a first baseman with upside for $2?

Close call. This is where our Todd Linden rule comes into play. Last year we had 9 keepers we liked. We also had Linden at $5. Linden was scheduled to be the Giants 4th outfielder, behind Bonds, Winn and Roberts. He tore up Scottsdale in spring training. Larry B. came by the office in early March and I asked him flat out: How many at bats will Linden get? He said 350. That was the number I was guessing. So we made Linden our 10th keeper. And here are Linden’s 2007 stats:

184 at bats, 1 homer, 11 RBIs, 4 steals, .245 BA.

The Todd Linden rule, learned the hard way: Don’t stretch to keep marginal keepers. We’re applying that rule to Kevin Correia, who we have at $6, and who may well be worth more than that in 2008.

So we’re likely not to keep Clark. Actually, the Doc may disagree – we haven’t discussed it. And we may change our mind. But we see a lot of teams likely to keep marginal guys at seeming good prices. Good luck with that. BTW, Clark is almost certainly available. Remember – we’re email guys.

First Peek

I finally got Rotolab installed this week. The Doc set up the projected rosters, and I refined it. Based on Baseball HQ’s preliminary projections and our guess at the keeper and contract decisions, BABI breaks into 4 three team tiers.

Top Tier – Bums, Cartel and Old Rips

The Champs have a great, deep keeper list, but the key profits are in two farm players entering their second year at $5: Ryan Braun and Chris (AZ) Young. Baseball HQ projects $59 in profits on these two guys. They surely looked great last year, and they look like sure fantasy studs, but they are still awfully young. BTW, Braun is projected at 37/97/17/.302, and Young at 28/68/22/.258. These figures both anticipate declines from their performance in 2007, so the profits may prove to be even bigger if they can match or exceed last season’s stats.

A lot of the Cartel profits are wrapped up in their 2 closers, Capps and Corpas. I’m not convinced some of the other profits are such sure things. Both Broxton and Ayala are projected at $9 with several saves (8 for Broxton) and sub 3.00 ERAs. We’ll see, but it will depend on how well Mr. Cartel purchases hitting stats. We have him keeping just 1 non-rookie, the marginally priced Orlando Hudson. Gregg also has the most money to spend, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Boof has a lot of potential keepers, and it will be interesting to see if he can package 2 or 3 for 1 in the pre-season. His big profits are in Victorino (32 steals projected) and Matt Diaz (projecting 488 at bats). Some of the profits will disappear if he extends Freddie Sanchez or Stephen Drew – we have assumed that he will not do so.

Second Tier – Cappers, Pecklers and Falkuhns

We suspect that the Pounders are wondering why they aren’t listed here, but frankly, despite some great names, they barely made the third tier.

Geo has big profits in $5 farm player Troy Tulowitzki and $12 Raffy Soriano. Baseball HQ only gives Lyon 9 saves compared to 22 for Pena, so there may be more profits for the Cappers if they follow through on their announcement this week that Lyon will start as the closer for Arizona. On the other hand, they show Brett Myers at $13, including 11 wins and 4 saves and a 3.88 ERA. We’ll see about that.

The Pecklers feature their 2 $5 farm players, Hunter Pence and James Loney, plus an extended $18 Eric Byrnes (projected at 19 homers and 34 steals, down from 21 and 50). The big upside player is Kerry Wood, being kept at $3, but projected to be worth only $1 with 2 saves. Baseball HQ shows Marmol getting 23 saves for the Cubs.

The Falkuhns have lots and lots of keepers, but not enough spectacular keepers. Plus they have to deal with contract extensions for Fielder (we guessed $20) Phillips ($16), and Kelly Johnson (8). They also project 26 saves for Brian Wilson. That would be a save in every game won by the Giants this season. Speaking of which, Kenny 9 - odds on 100 Giant losses in 2008, please?

Third Tier – Hobos, Busch Leaguers and Pounders

It’s all about Matt Holliday among Hobo hitters. In fact, he’s the only hitter we have them keeping at this point. Noel always has several pitchers to keep, including 2 closers, Cordero and Gregg. We assume they will buy out Carpenter’s contract. Virtually all of their keeper profits are in Holliday and Gregg.

The Leaguers have a short keeper list, but on it is Hanley Ramirez, who is projected at $41 (26 HR, 43 steals, both stats less than 2007). We have him only keeping 1 pitcher, Gorzellany, which fits his tradition of having $10 left for 7 pitchers in the end game. It will be interesting to see how Mr. Leaguer approaches this season.

OK, the Pounders have Wright and Utley. Baseball HQ only has Chris (SD) Young worth $11 (11 wins) which seems awfully low. We have him keeping Pedro, too, in his new hitter’s paradise, which would result in a $4 loss according to Shandler. And for Giants fans who are interested, they project Rowand at 16/69/9/.288. That RBI total shows you what they think of the Giants’ offense.

The Dregs – Any 9, Lickers, Bats

None of these teams is projected to have a great keeper. The best is the Lickers’ Yovani Gallardo, a $15 value kept at $5. He’s been getting hyped in the pre-season press, and based solely on that is our candidate for hyped player of the year. All of these teams have a lot of marginal keepers. I’d be inclined to remember that sometimes less is more.

Our Big Brother

A really great friend of the Pickled Pecklers, Jeff Tiret, passed away yesterday. He was one of our tennis buddies, and among them, he was truly special. Many of the widespread Tiret family are tennis-playing members of the O Club, and the tennis fortunes of the Tiret and Peckler families became intertwined in a way that we really just became one big tennis-playing extended family.

I remember well the first time I played Jeff. We faced each other around 10 or 12 years ago in the first round of the club singles championships. I was just learning the game, and did not have any expectations of winning a championship, but I figured I could hold my own in singles against an out of shape old codger. He creamed me. Creamed me. He bageled me in the first set, and I was lucky to steal 4 games in the second. 6-0 in the first doesn’t come close to describing how badly he beat me. I felt like I was playing against Sampras. Back in the day before his shoulder surgery, Jeff had a huge serve, and he was just crushing it that day.

A few years ago I got to even the score. We played again in the first round of the club singles. I was playing really well that summer, and he was going though one of those out of shape periods. I mashed him up really good (I won’t mention that the score was 2 and 3). But here is where Jeff was really special. The Pecklers are famous for our frustrations when things aren’t going well on the court. Je