The 2005 Busch Leaguers

It is a long season. Nothing says this more than as of 4/16/05 the Busch Leaguers were in 9th place with only 43 points.

It is unlikely that anything short of a nuclear bomb set off at the All-Star game will cause the Buschies to finish somewhere near their current position. They had a huge lead going into the auction and they likely extended it despite purposely wasting money on Beltran. Would anyone have bid more than 52 if Jeff had not preempted the bidding? Our guess is Jeff would have gotten him for 49 or 50. A preempt is a bold move, but we wouldn’t have gone more than 46 or 47, and we had $208 to spend. And we didn’t really want him at the price we were sure we’d have to pay because we expect more like 30-30 than 40-40. But, in the end, it was only a few bucks.

The team’s big advantage after the auction appeared to be in pitching. Certainly the extent of Gagne’s injury will have a significant effect on this team, though if he ends up out longer than Barry it probably just brings him back closer to the rest of us. He’s got Sheets, Oliver Perez (looking pretty bad so far) Harang (looking pretty good so far) and Randy Wolf (we weren’t interested, and at 14 he’s fully priced, but Jeff apparently had him targeted. His 5th starter is the other R. Ortiz, Ramon, who went on the DL today after a pretty good outing a few days ago. I’m surprised no one else bid a buck on Glendon Rusch, whose ratio at 2.087 is almost as high as his ERA (2.35). It doesn’t look like he’s got any Oliver Perez surprises in there, unless you count his keeping Harang over John Thompson, and it doesn’t look like he’s picked any Gagnes or Lidges, but then, he didn’t pick either of those guys originally – he just traded for them.

The hitting is deep enough, though there are some names on this roster that have question marks – Closser, Atkins, Choi, Guzman, Dubois and Hawpe have never done much at the major league level, though they all have potential. Jeff had such a big lead he could afford to buy a bunch of young guys with potential, though none of them looks like he has a bargain price tag attached. On the other hand, although we like young guys, we went for guys more in their prime who we could count on for stats. With big inflation you usually have to pay for that (it’s a form of insurance), though paying $11 for Eckstein compared to paying $8 for Guzman who has never done it in the big leagues seems more than just prudent.

Stolen bases might be a little hole on this team. Right now Jeremy Burnitz and Matt Holliday are leading the team with 2 steals each. Jeff is counting on a lot of stolen bases from Beltran. I saw Beltran steal third twice in one game last year, so I know he’s a great base stealer, but with a hundred million tied up in this guy, how many injury chances do the Mets really want to take.

Although he won’t finish the season with this exact group, it is interesting to look ahead one year to the 2006 Busch Leaguers keepers. Hitters include Hernandez at 12, maybe Sanders at 18, Holliday at 18, and maybe one of Dubois (7) or Hawpe (14). In pitching let’s guess Harang extended to 6 if he has a good year, Perez extended to 8, Sheets at 17, Lidge at 13 and maybe one of those cheap pitchers. In all, it will be quite a drop down from his 2005 keeper list. This season could well be the last hurrah for the Pujols/Gagne led Busch Leaguers. This team doesn’t look as unbeatable as last season’s team. It should be fun to watch Jeff work his magic one last time.