Teams to the North

We're sitting in 5th place today, actually tied for 5th with the Pounders at 63 points. It's early, but having more than 63 points at this point is, I believe we can all agree, a good sign. So I'd like to take a look at the four teams above us in the standings.

Any 9 (72 points)

As the auction was going on, I had the sense that pick by pick, Ken was having a good day. I was so involved with the mechanics of my spreadsheet that I couldn't really look at his roster as it was developing, but I felt that he was paying reasonable prices for good players in a highly inflationary setting. I specifically remember thinking Woody Williams at $7, Clemens at $24 and Odalis Perez at $20 were good values.

The Pecklers also had a slot that we called the Lowry/Willis slot. There were about 6 pitchers who we liked for a slot we budgetted $14 which was going to be our #4 starter. We liked Noah Lowry and Dontrelle Willis in that slot the best, thus the "name". When Jeff brought up Lowry, we were thrilled to get him for $11. We figured we were done with starters, but we soon bought Brandon Webb for $14, who we thought was a step above this spot and expected to go for more like $20. Then Dontrelle's name came up. We were already plus 1 on starters (we ended up plus 2 when we bought Mike Hampton while price enforcing), so we let him pass. Another good price for Ken, we thought.

Good price indeed. We liked his look in spring training with the lower leg kick, and we sure like him after his first three starts. We guess Ken does too. Interestingly, we bought Willis last year away from Ken, who then went stratospheric buying Webb. We’re known as hitting pickers and Ken is known as a pitching picker, but we appear to be picking up a few things from him lately. Anyway, he’s got one hell of a staff, with 1-1/2 closers to boot. Who exactly is that at the bottom of his pitching roster – Julius DeRosa? I thought he was dead. Ken’s got 41.5 pitching points today.

Like the Giants, he’s middling along in hitting with Moises on the DL. We also thought Kent was a fair buy at $25, and Mike Lieberthal is the protypical $14 hitter. And he remembered Chris Burke, saving a few bucks for him at the end. When his name came up in the auction, and all of our hitting slots had been filled, Seth said “Damn, I forgot about him.” His only expensive hitter is the reasonably priced Juan Pierre, the famous French base stealer. He won’t fall out of any hitting category such that he can’t fix it during the season. So if his pitching stays strong (famous last words)…

Bats (70.5 points)

As the auction was going on, I had just the opposite impression of Barry’s players. We had Hudson as the #1 starting pitcher with $30 INF penciled in (we bid that). Sorry, but $33 is a lot for a starter, no matter what Kevin thinks (btw, he forgot Hudson in the BABI Talk.) He made bets on a few “Closers of the Future.” We’ve been in this league about 12 years, and we’ve yet to pick up a single Closer of the Future actually become the Closer of Today except for about a week and a half last year when Valverde took over only to blow out his arm.

A couple of other purchases felt like Barry was chasing. $7 for Jason LaRue, $16 for Marquis Grissom (hey, Giants are Barry’s vice too, not just the Bums), and at the time $3 for Victor Diaz, who has already earned his $3 I think. Barry has 5 different players with 3 or more homers, so he’s got some depth, and he’s leading the league in steals, so there are certainly some numbers here. But we have a hard time believing this team is going to finish with the 47 hitting points they currently hold.

One thing we are willing to speculate on: Barry Reads the TRUM Blog. His purchase of Matt Wise was touted a day or two before the auction there.

HOBO Artillery (68.5 points)

Kevin likes these guys, so I’d better take a look. Actually I thought this team and the Cappers (next up, below) had the best keeper lists after the Busch Leaguers.

Hank gives the appearance of someone who does not like to chase after players, but methinks he is a little more CFO and a little less accountant. I remember him bidding $49 on a somewhat over the hill Fred McGriff a few decades back. This time it was $39 for Corey Patterson, one of the highly hyped potential 4 category players available. The Doc and I coveted Patterson, and always thought we would get him, but he went flying by our $36 target and we let him go. Alfonzo seemed awfully expensive at $20, but the guy is really swinging the bat, so that may just prove to be astute.

We got into a direct bidding war for Utley, who Hank bought for $13 (after borrowing a couple of bucks from Noel’s pitching budget). We had money at that point, but Hank just stared us down. I’ve seen that look on Hank’s face before, and you know Hank’s number is just higher than yours. At that point it’s just a game of chicken. He got that look over Kenny Lofton, too.

Meanwhile Noel had some nice keepers coming in, and solidified the staff by buying Oswalt, who we had #2 behind Hudson and ahead of Pedro. $31 is big bucks for a starter, but they had the profits to afford it, and he’s looking better with every outing. Noel got that Hank look on Brian Lawrence at $13 (we had Lowry and Willis way ahead of him). And Scott Linebrink is a great middle reliever, but $5 was kind of whacky when it was still early in the draft. The rest of the pitching purchases were somewhat unremarkable.

While we don’t think that Mark Loretta is going to lead the NL in steals, this team has something of everything: power, speed, starters, relievers. Contenders.

Cappers (64 points)

If I had written this yesterday, this article would be over, but George jumped in front of us yesterday. This was another great keeper list.

George falls in love with some players. It’s impossible to predict who they will be, but it’s good to have one of them. He bought Bonds for $31, which is looking pretty risqué right now. Same with Mike Cameron at $19. We dropped both of them off our radar to a level that we knew we’d never get them. Hey, they could work out and be bargains (particularly for next year), but for this year they are going to be painful.

He also bought Smoltz for $20 after that ungodly outing on opening day when he didn’t make it out of the second. We had Smoltz as the #4 starter, but had moved him way down. Actually, that $20 is starting to look pretty good right now. It took real cajones to buy him on April 8. And he surely paid full price for Brandon Lyon, which is looking like a pretty good move right now, but back then, before he even got save #1 he was surely no sure thing with an ugly past. And as Kevin noted, he said 2 on Brett Myers. He’s always had promise, but last season was just painful.
There are a lot of good players on this team, and certainly the Cappers will be in contention. But I’ve got a bad feeling about Barry and Cameron. And I don’t think George is going to make up for it by Vinny Castilla, Tony Clark and Bobby Hill continuing to hit over .400.