Hit By The Pitch

I was trading conversational emails yesterday with the Cartel Czar. Instead of talking about it, I’m just going to list the unedited commentary. It began with a note that Milton Bradley’s finger was not coming along very fast. This is probably a big problem for Bradley, a truly infamous hothead, because it may make it harder for him to give someone the finger. (Mark, I assume you’ll remember the Seinfeld in which George is driving with Dave Winfield (I think) and follows some guy for miles and miles because he thinks he gave him the finger, but it turned out his hand was in a cast.)

==>>Insert...Mark immediately emailed me that it was Danny Tartabull, not Winfield. The man is without doubt the all time expert in Seinfeld episodes. His baseball acumen, on the other hand...

Anyway, here is the conversation:

GD - Bradley has made no progress in his rehab and might have to undergo further tests. He even had problems batting right-handed - previously, he only had discomfort when batting left-handed

I now have intelligence that you were in fact at the batting practice on Monday and had full knowledge. I’m in the process of sticking pins in an effigy of Miguel Cabrera.

JP - We shipped Seth down to LA to examine him. I assume you knew he was injured, since he’s been on the DL for a month. :) He’ll be back. I’m glad they’re not rushing him.

Meanwhile, did you see the play Werth made last night? He scored from second base on a wild pitch!!! It was incredibly exciting. That guy is big and strong and fast. If he could have an injury free season, I’m telling you, he could go 25HR-15 SB.

GD - Josh, I was well aware of Bradley’s injury and had read some about his slow recuperation… just kidding. Us last placers have to get some fun out of this. I missed the play that Werth made but I know that he has speed as well as power.

JP - There is a famous play that Kirk Gibson made when he was on that Dodger team that beat the A’s (thanks to his homer in Game 1). ESPN did a 1 hour Beyond the Glory on that team. He scored from 2nd on a wild pitch to score the winning run in a game that completely energized the team. If you ever get to see that special, it’s really great, and I think you have an idea how I feel about the Dodgers.

GD - I have seen it, or at least the piece you’re talking about. I’m not a Dodger fan either… been a Giants fan forever. I’m still pissed that the umpire ruled that Dietz stepped into the pitch from Drysdale (that would have walked in a run and broken Drysdale’s scoreless inning streak).

JP - Bullshit call. At least the record was broken, though by a Dodger (Hershiser), and that same season too!

For those of you who don’t remember, in 1968 (the year of the pitcher), Drysdale was going for the consecutive scoreless innings record. In the ninth inning of a game against the Giants, with Drysdale going for his fifth consecutive shutout, the Giants had the bases loaded and no outs. He then hit Dietz with a pitch, forcing in a run and ending the streak. Unpire Harry Wendelstedt ruled that Dietz did not try to get out of the way of the pitch, and ruled that the pitch was a ball and that Dietz was still batting. No run. Drysdale then got out of the inning without giving up a run.

This was the end of the conversation for Wednesday. Then, in today’s paper, front page of the Sporting Green, they announced Dick Dietz’ death this week. How many of you had a conversation lately that included a reference to Dick Dietz? When I saw the article, I couldn’t remember who I had just discussed him with, but I just assumed that the person had already heard about his death. Not so. Here is my email this morning:

GD - It was so bizarre to read about Dick Dietz this morning after discussing him with you! I hadn’t heard about him in a long time until I read the Chronicle this morning. BTW, he’s one of my Lotto numbers: 2, 16, 24, 25, 27, 44. You’ll probably recognize the pattern.

Drysdale, gone 12 years now at the age of 57, was younger than some of the guys in our league. Dietz is now gone too. Wendelstedt lives on, having even played himself in not one but two pretty bad movies after 33 years and an NL umpire.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

==>>Postscript. Here is a followup email from Mark:

For those of you who were real Giants fan, they knew Dietz by his real nickname, not the “Mule” as listed in the paper, but “Cement Hands.”

Another little Dick Dietz trivia for ya. I caught my first foul ball off his bat at the Stick. Well, I really didn’t catch it. It was a screamer over the fence that hit this old man in the gut in the first row of the reserved seats. I happened to be walking by and a scrum ensued when he bobbled the catch. I got pushed into him and managed to wrest the ball loose from him. So sue me!

As they say in NY, I got your baseball acumen right here.

Blind as a Bat

I just had my eyes dilated, and can barely see a thing. So if there are typos in this mess, just forgive and forget.

There were two big trades today, and we were party to one. After negotiating for a couple of weeks with Greg Doyle, we sent Milton Bradley and Jayson Werth to the Cartel for Miguel Cabrera and Sean Casey. Having moved to 11th place in batting average, we are desperate for a couple of 300 hitters. We figure we’ll pick up a few RBI’s (we need them), lose a few homers, and lose 1 stolen base point to the Cartel. Werth is a great keeper at a buck, and Bradley at $23 is excellent too, though we got back Cabrera who is under contract for another year at $15.

We found it difficult to move either guy. We don’t understand it. Part of the problem is that Mark was fixated on getting Lidge (see below) from the Busch Leaguers, and so he wouldn’t talk to us. Kevin is taking his time, Doug and Frank are not active dumpers and Larry is impossible to deal with. The final straw is that it was reported today that Bradley is still not ready to come back, and had a setback this week. We’ve wasted a month waiting for the guy, who was in a perpetual state of “back at the end of the week”, so we left him in a semi-frozen state. Werth finally awoke this week, with 4 homers, but he’s not a high average guy, and may lose some playing time when Bradley comes back.

There is one more thing about Bradley: he’s only signed through this year. He’ll probably be resigned by the Dodgers, and the odds are he’ll stay in the NL, but it was a consideration. Plus, we suspect Cabrera is pretty tradeable besides being pretty keepable. Of course we’re hoping that Casey will start hitting a few dingers, but if he just keeps hitting 320 with some RBI’s in that #3 spot in the order, we’ll be satisfied.

We were, in theory, talking with the Falkuhns. It was strictly theory. Larry keeps advertising for people to deal with him, but I’ve been logged into Larry Dot Net for a month and we never got close to a deal. He said he was interested in Bradley, but I could not pin him down, not even close. I think he just said it. Meanwhile, I left him 2 phone messages this past week without hearing back. I always thought he was stringing me along to get a better deal from Hobo. There is a rumor that Hank set 11am today as the final deadline for any deal with the Falkuhns. I doubt that, but I understand the feeling. Who know, maybe Larry would be interested in Cabrera?

Meanwhile, the Rips pulled off an egregious dump deal. I hate it. It has such a big effect on the race, making the Leaguers pretty tough competition. I just spoke with Ken, though, and he thought Mark made a great deal, getting the single best keeper in the league (Lidge) and weakening the Leaguers for the future. He also questions whether Maddux and Lowe will help or hurt the Leaguers’ pitching stats. He gave up nothing in saves (Jones is doing well), got Abreu, and is hoping his pitching will improve overall. I guess we’ll see, but that’s a tough looking team.

As for the Pecklers, we actually made another major move today by dumping all of our Giant starting pitching. Lowry and Tomko are gone, waived for two middle relievers (Carrasco and Witasick) who won’t kill us. We could really use Hampton back (he’s going to be out for a while longer, but at $3 maybe someone would trade us a useful starter for him?), because we only have 3 starters left – Pedro, Webb and Suppan. For the moment.

Anyway, it’s a hell of a race we’ve got. Hey, we’re trying.

Where Ya Been?

I’ve been offline for a while. Doing this is a habit that is easy to get out of. Everyday has a different timing to it, so I can’t always have a standard moment in the day where I stop working and write. I had a meatpie lunch (Henry's Hunan) with Mark and Noel today, and they both asked what happened to the blog. It's nice to be missed, so, to quote Buckwheat, "Heah I is!"

Anyway, let’s begin with my 8th Giants game last night at SBC. The Giants have actually won a few games lately, which was not the case the last time I wrote here. Jason Schmidt sort of looked like the Schmidt of old, giving up 4 hits and no runs through 8 innings. He’s not throwing 97 MPH anymore, and rarely humps it up to go over 92, but his control was superb.

In the bottom of the 8th, the Giants got a runner on, and with 2 outs, Schmidt came up to bat. He had thrown 110 pitches through 8, and although Eyre and Walker had warmed up in the top of the inning, they were back in the dugout now. I thought, “I don’t get it. Yeah, he’s got a shutout going, but there is a good chance he’s going to throw too many pitches trying to finish the shutout, which is what got him in trouble in the first place.”

Now it’s top 9 and Schmidt is on the mound. He should not have been there, and I was sure Felipe had him on a short leash. I even wonder if he said anything to him in the dugout about it. The Giants need this guy. If they are going anywhere (ok, unlikely), they are NOT going to do it without this guy being a #1 pitcher. It’s clear no one else on the staff can do it. So he needs to throttle his ego and protect his arm for the good of the team. Anyway, Luis Gonzalez is up and it’s strike one, strike two. Then Schmidt rears back on a fast ball and throws it 5 feet over Matheny’s head, hitting the screen on the fly. Everyone is laughing except me and the Doc. We’re both saying get him the hell out of there. A couple more pitches later and Gonzalez slaps a single into right field.

Felipe is out of the dugout almost before Gonzalez gets to first base. I got up on my feet, applauding Felipe. Hey, it’s a no brainer. Then the fans start to boo. Loudly. What a bunch of freakin’ idiots. Schmidt is losing it, he’s thrown 116 pitches, which was 6 too many, and the fans are booing taking the team’s most critical working piece out of the game. I’m sorry, but Bay Area fans know nothing about sports, even though they think they do.

Of course, Eyre and Walker came in to strike out the side (Green by Eyre, Glaus and Tracy by Walker), and the Giants win 4-0. All the pitchers hugged Schmidt in that shaking hands thing after the game, especially Eyre and Walker, and of course, Matheny. It was the most positive thing this team has seen all season. Moises had an especially good game (he’s clearly going to be the Giants’ All-Star). I’m 4-4 at SBC.

So it appears we’ve got a 7 team race in BABI. I got an email from Mr. Leaguer the day he took over sole possession of first place, which I assume he expected me to post. Here it is:

“After a long and unexpected period of chaos, the natural order of the universe has been restored. “

I guess I’ve got 2 things to say to that. The first is “how true.” The second is “bite me.”

We’re not giving up, but we’re not doing so well. Suddenly BA is way down and RBI’s are fading, though we’re hitting homers again this week. Jayson Werth finally got homer #1 last night. We’ve had trade talks with a couple of teams, but the closest deal did not happen because we refused to throw in Lastings Milledge. Baseball Prospectus said that his name is even better than the names in Dickens. All I can say is Milledge, age 19, could be phenomenal. And I’ll add that we’ll trade him, but not as a throw in as part of a fairly equal deal. Meanwhile, I'm sure Lou wouldn't have been concerned about throwing in Milledge. With the Lickers, it's all about now. I love those guys.

I’m not going to post details about deals that don’t happen, because, well, they still might. But the guy we were talking with should take note: that was the best offer you’re likely to get from anyone.

Mark has thrown in the towel. The trade with the Cappers was a good one for George, decent for Mark. It probably depends on how healthy and productive Rolen is. As for Mark, I asked why he didn’t at least even call us and he said we didn’t have anything he wanted. Well……..see the second thing above.

We’re not sure about the Pounders plans for this year. I suspect Ken is trying to suck him dry. They have been trading partners for years. I’ll just take this moment to suggest to Kevin that he should at least speak to us first or else be the butt of some poignant sarcasm here. Hey, whatever it takes: charm, begging, intimidation. I promise this: we make fair deals. Always have, always will. (OK, Larry, Bonds for Borowski didn’t work out so well for George, but he was a $3 closer.)

Nice to be back.

One in a Row

Hey, the Giants actually won a game tonight! That makes 3 of the last 18. Noah Lowry cruised for a few innings and then, characteristically, blew up, but the bullpen kept his 5-4 lead intact. Then, in the top of the ninth, with Tyler Walker getting ready come in for the save for the Giants and the Pecklers, Mike Matheny drove in an insurance run. Fortunately for the Giants but unfortunately for the Pecklers that was followed by Omar Vizquel’s first NL jimmy jack, a two run bomb to left to eliminate the opportunity for a save.

We had a couple of trades this week. The Pounders found a buyer for Furcal, the Lickers, who gave up a $2 Turnbow. This looks like a good trade for both teams. The Lickers can move to 1st or 2nd in steals (they are in 4th, but with big downside), and they keep Furcal off all the other contending teams. Turnbow might be a fine keeper, but the Lickers have both Mesa and Dempster, and they don’t care about keepers! As for the Pounders, as long as Furcal continues to hit .220, that was about the most they’d get for him.

The Cartel swapped Todd Walker for uhm…… huh? OK, Josh Barfield is a prospect, but he’s hitting sort of OK at AAA. Meanwhile, Walker looks like the only non-keeper to pair with Casey to obtain a decent keeper unless you think Sergio Mitre is for real. Here’s what Baseball Prospectus says about him:

Mitre did not fare well during his major league trial, but it’s a blessing to have this sort of organizational depth in a world in which contending teams routinely make deadline deals for people like Paul Abbot. While he doesn’t have the big out pitch he needs to be a star, he does an exceptional job of keeping the ball down, as well as reasonably near the strike zone. PECOTA likes the incremental gains to Mitre’s strikeout rate and thinks that he has some sleeper potential.

So far Mitre’s had 5 starts, 2 ugly and 3 superb. His minor league stats at Iowa this year are a little less impressive: 45 IP, 49 H, 14 BB, 37 K, 4.60 ERA, 1.40 WHIP. Never mind. Remember him next year when someone brings him up at the end of the auction and consider saying “2”.

I had a Kaz Matsui sighting tonight. I actually saw him not only hit a single, but then he stole 2nd base easily on a high and outside throw to the plate. Now that’s $22 well spent!

Russ Ortiz was cruising along in Chicago (AL) tonight with a 6-2 lead going into the bottom of the 6th when the wheels fell off. The White Sox put up a ten spot in the 6th, and Ortiz left 5.88 ERA on the season. Remember when he started out the season so hot? Be careful what you see in early April. Sort of like Xavier Nady.

When are we going to get past this stinkin’ interleague play? There’s just too many box scores, too many stats to look at each day. Let’s get back to 8 boxes on half a page of newspaper! Don’t tell me about no Derek Jeter.

I just checked our stats for the day. So far the Pecklers are 6 for 47 at the plate. I guess it's good we got 47 AB's, but that kind of glass is half full thinking is going to have us finish down there with the Rips.

Stolen Dreams

The Chronicle is full of dumping predictions for the Giants. Brower waived. Foppert starting Tuesday. Snow to the bench. Niekro starting. Young relievers I can’t remember are up from Fresno. Todd Linden might be coming up and will be a starter if he does. Presumably Grissom to the bench or worse.

Hey, they suck. They lost 5 of 6 at home to the weak AL Central teams, and were beaten pretty badly in all of them. Wait ‘till next year.

The Pecklers are not heavily invested in the Giants, at least on the pathetic hitting end. We’ve got none of them. We do have their 2 best starters (Tomko doesn’t suck, and Lowry only sucks for one inning per outing) and their closer (Walker, the scariest closer in baseball, though I did see him throwing at 97 MPH last week). With the worst minor league system in baseball, and with almost all the big contracts locked and loaded for one more year (Barry, Dunston, Alfonso, Visquel, Alou), there is not going to be any kind of quick fix other than through the return of Barry to 2001 hitting levels. What a disappointing season.

But not so for the Pecklers, who are hanging in there amongst the BABI leaders. We need Bradley back (end of the week, or so it seems) and Hampton (his $3 contract should be tradable). And despite the fact that we’ve got 2 of the NL’s closers, Looper and Walker are so inconsistent in getting saves, that we’re stuck in the mud for saves.

Busch Leaguers: 65 points. And they’ve got a lot of upside in pitching. Toys predicts 80 points for them. I think that’s way too much, and I think it will be a dogfight among 6, then 4 then maybe 3 teams. Success will be based on team management the rest of the way. I think the Leaguers will be in that group. I think the Lickers will also be in that group. As for the rest of the contenders, I’m not saying. I HOPE the Pecklers will be in that group.

It’s interesting how forgiving this game can actually be, assuming that you are not hit with serious, long-term injuries to your stars. We paid $22 for Kaz Matsui. I think $8 would have been more like it. We thought he’d be 15+ HR’s and 15+ steals and hit .275. It doesn’t look like hi'll come near any of those numbers. We had a long list of starting pitchers that we expected to go from $9-$15, and ended up with Lowry (big miss) and Webb (tough no-decision yesterday, but solid). And we swapped Tracy (nice young player, but only part-time now because of the torrid Tony Clark) and Dustan Mohr (piece of shit) for Jim Edmonds. We got some money to spend in the draft on that one, but we’d probably be in first place had we not made that deal. But we’re still up there, and should be competitive if we can do decently during the trading season which is now really upon us.

The Pounders have made Furcal available, and someone is going to make that deal. He’s leading the NL in steals, and has been on a tear, but his other numbers are horrible. And he’s now playing hurt. Kevin’s probably dying over Furcal’s .220 BA because even if he was hitting only .260 he’d be way more tradable. But the 4 or 5 points he gives you in SB are probably lost in BA and power points, at least they are for us.

Kevin is asking for top quality keepers for Furcal. We won’t identify who he asked for from us, but they were good names. But that BA with the huge number of AB’s he gets is a killer. See my piece early on here about Ichiro. We’re barely hanging on in BA and we need to go up, not down. I suspect there is someone out there who can afford this, though, because like Podsednik last year, he is unique as a base stealer. But there was a big difference when we traded Pods to Lou last year: he had hit 10 homers, and he was hitting around .260, not .220. AND, he finished with 70 steals last year. Does anyone think Furcal is going to finish with 70 steals?

What is most interesting about Kevin’s offers are that I can’t tell if he’s dumping or playing for this year. He’s looking for good hitting back, but he asked for hitters who all have good contracts for next season. If he’s playing for this year, he’s got to make the deal soon or else he’s going to be too far behind (he may already be there). But if Furcal could put on a little hot streak and get his BA over .250, he’d have a lot more buyers. He spent $30 on Furcal, and based on his performance, it was too much. But he is on course for 50-60 steals, which is a real number, particularly in the NL. It’s easy to be an expert with hindsight. I will say I thought $30 was a decent price for Furcal when Kevin bought him. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

BABI 2005 Auction All-Star Team, 6/10

I’ve got the Belmont Stakes pre-game show on TV in the background. By the time I’m done, the race may be too. At 3:05, as I write this, I’m predicting Afleet Alex easily. His run in the Preakness was one of the most impressive ever, recovering from a serious foul at the top of the stretch to blow away all comers. I’ve been to 4 Belmonts, won by Riva Ridge (72), Secretariat (73), Little Current (74) and Affirmed (78). Little Current is not well remembered, but he came in 4th in the Derby after a very rough ride, and then destroyed the field in both the Preakness and Belmont. Riva Ridge lost only the Preakness, a great horse from (I think) the same stable as Secretariat.

Of course Secretariat and Affirmed won two of the most storied races ever. Secretariat was Bob Beamon squared: the best race horse ever on his best day. He broke the track record by 2-1/2 seconds, and it still stands today 32 years later. Affirmed beat another great horse, Alydar, by a nose as they went around the mile and a half head to head from beginning to end. Alydar came in second in all three triple crown races, and ultimately had more success as a stud horse than his rival Affirmed.

OK, back to baseball. I’m still blown away by our first place Lickers, who purchased 23 guys in the auction, keeping only Mesa at $23 and Grudz at $7. Decent prices, but nothing too special. I started wondering how many good auction prices there were.

I did a little spreadsheet analysis today. I picked out the BABI All-Stars who were purchased in the 2005 Auction. No keepers are listed here. Of course, there are some close calls, but I’ve put together a 25 man team with proper positions which cost in the auction $276. I’ll admit, the catchers are weak, third base was thin, and I’ve got 3 closers listed who did not start the season as the closer. In fact, one was purchased by the Leaguers for a buck and was waived. But it’s a hell of a team:

C – Jason Phillips 7 (Pecklers)
C – Damian Miller 1 (Cartel)
1B – Nick Johnson 15 (Bums)
3B – Joe Randa 13 (Pounders)
CI – Tony Clark 1 (Cappers)
2B – Felipe Lopez 2 (Cappers)
SS – Omar Vizquel 17 (Bums)
MI – Chase Utley 13 (Hobo)
OF – Pat Burrell 29 (Cappers)
OF – Mike Cameron 19 (Cappers)
OF – Carlos Lee 38 (Pounders)
OF – Willie Taveras 19 (Pounders)
OF – Milton Bradley 23 (Pecklers)
OF – Jason Ellison 1 (Lickers)
U – Darrel Ward 3 (Falkuhns)
P1 – Pedro Martinez 30 (Pecklers)
P2 – Dontrelle Willis 14 (Any 9)
P3 – Brett Myers 2 (Cappers)
P4 – Glendon Rusch 1 (Leaguers)
P5 – Mark Redman 6 (Cartel)
P6 – Adam Eaton 14 (Cartel)
P7 – John Patterson 2 (Lickers)
P8 – Brian Fuentes 1 (Leaguers, waived)
P9 – Chris Reitsma 3 (Falkuhns)
P10 – Derrick Turnbow (Old Rips, traded)

Some of these guys might not be on the list at the end. And there are lots of guys who almost made this list. The Lickers’ entire pitching staff almost made it: Hernandez, Davis, Marquis, Capuano and even Loaiza could have been listed instead of Redman or Eaton. You might disagree with a few of these guys, but check out the totals compared to the current first place team in each category:

Homers – 109 v. 95
RBI’s – 418 v. 365
Steals – 66 v. 60
BA - .302 v. .292
Wins – 48 v. 43
Saves – 20 v. 34
ERA – 2.58 v. 3.49
WHIP – 1.090 v. 1.241

This team is in first place in every category except saves, and with 3 current closers (well maybe Reitsma is the closer in Atlanta), these guys might end up in first by season’s end. Remember, closers were non-existent in the auction (only Billy Wagner and General Tsao were available, and Wagner went for 36).

It goes to show it can be done. It’s just not very easy. Well done, Lickers. It will be interesting to see how many of the above players get traded between now and the end of the season. As of now, they are all solid keepers.

Afleet Alex just blew away the field in the Belmont from behind. Great horse. Easy money.

Friday Fish Fry

Herb Caen used to call his Friday columns something like that. I once got a personal reference in his column. In the annual 1040 tax package mailed to a select mailing list of about 100 million people, the Commissioner of the IRS had a short letter to the taxpayers about the package. In the letter he referred to “you, our valued customers…” I found that and odd choice of words and so I cut it out and sent it to Herb. He published it with the comment that it was his impression that people chose to be customers voluntarily. He also sent me a note thanking me, which was probably good for business but which was nice anyway.

I’ve been a little lax this week, busy from the catchup of a few days off from work. So I’m going to do one of those miscellany columns to catch up.

I’ve been to not one but two Giants games. Tuesday night I sat in an unbelievable seat—Section 113, Row C, close enough to razz the Dreyer’s Jr. Giant announcer. Thanks to Bob and Marinell Jochnowitz, who putchased the tickets in a charity auction. Marinell had a pop foul hit right to her, but she kind of bailed out, though she blamed the guy next to her for bumping her. Unfortunately her misfortune was the highlight of the night as the Giants and Woody Reuter got shellacked by the worst team in baseball, the Royals, 8-1.

I got to see them win Thursday afternoon in KC’s getaway game. Noah pitched well through five, though he threw too many pitches. He left up 4-1 with 2 on in the 6th. Scott Munter proceded to wild pitch a guy home and then give up two more runs to blow Noah’s win. Tyler Walker did come in for the save in the ninth, ending it with the bases loaded to make it exciting. My SBC season record is now 3-4.

I haven’t given up on the Giants yet, but it is looking pretty bleak. The pitching is a mess, save Tomko who may end up as the Giants’ all-star. And except for the occasional game, the hitting is no better. Their lineup looked pretty much like the Royals – a bunch of .270 hitters who don’t hit homers. Certainly Bonds makes everything better, but really, would they be that much better? Moises is a nice hitter, but there is just no power here. It’s good enough for a team with great pitching, but not a team with horrible pitching.

Speaking of which, it looks like Jerome Williams may be coming up soon for the Cubs. I can’t say I’m too impressed so far with Latroy Hawkins. Hobo should have dumped him on us when they had the chance. At least it was their boy Utley that had that pinch grand salami off of him last week.

And so we move from real baseball to fantasyland. We’re back in first (OK, we’re tied with the Lickers). The Lickers actually peaked up in the mid-70’s, but they’ve settled into real contention. And they’ve got a few cheap guys, like Ellison and Patterson and Turnbow who will be fine bargaining chips, all of whom have 07 contracts unlike recently traded keeper David Wright. More on that in a minute.

OK, how the hell did the Busch Leaguers move from the low 40’s to 63 points in what – about 15 minutes? Remember when they had like 6 pitching points? Well now they have 31 and climbing. We all knew this was going to happen, but it is shocking that Jeff hasn’t had to grind it out. Damn.

So we finally had the first official dump deal. Any 9, who may be dumping these guys back any minute as they are fading back with 46 points worked their magic of persistence with the Cartel. The deal:

To Any 9 – Counsell, Castillo, Wilson, Beckett
To Cartel – Wright, Michaels, Burke and bums

At first I thought “what a horrible dump deal”. The names are imposing, and the Cartel only got one bona fide studly keeper in David Wright, who has to go to 15 next year, you would think. Greg told me he’s sorry he didn’t bump Cabrera an extra 5 to 20 (I had predicted in the preseason that he would), so he’s not likely to make that mistake again. On the other hand, David Wright, though a very nice player, is no Miguel Cabrera. Michaels is one of those keepers that you wish you had someone better than, and Burke may be something some day, but he’s one of the great disappointments of 2005 so far after…well ALL of the SF Giants?

Every one of the guys going to Any 9 have warts, though. Counsell is not going to steal 30. Castillo hits .300 but can’t steal anymore and has no power at all. Wilson could be out of Colorado any minute. As for Beckett, it’s hard to say much bad about him except that he’s not been pitching well lately. He got bombed yesterday. Something looks wrong all of a sudden, kind of like what happened to Schmidt. I’m curious about his next outing.

That said, I think Greg made a mistake in trading one too many guys. He’s still got to trade Casey, but he needs to package something with Casey, and he’s out of stuff unless he wants to get into his potential keepers like Eaton. He proposed a package of Casey and Walker to us. I thought “not bad…Sean Casey and Larry Walker.” Then I looked at his roster, because I didn’t remember Larry Walker being on it, and it was actually Todd Walker. That’s not a combination that’s going to drag a top quality keeper off a team at this time of year. Maybe when the pickings are slimmer.

One last thing…last week I noticed that we had 21 hits in one day. Now that is a number!

And for those of you interested, we’re considering dumping steals, which could make Lawton and Eckstein available. Looking for power and saves. And BA. And wins. And low pitching numbers. And keepers. Hey, everyone wants steals, so talk to us.

Back from the Bar

I have returned from a great long weekend. In my email inbox was a league-wide query about trading from the Cartel:

As were approaching the Dump Deal season, an annual occurrence for me, I’m interested in any input on how to keep it as fair as possible?

Mr. Leaguer responded as follows:

I generally consider a "fair" dump deal as one where one team gets about 1.5 times as much present value in the deal, giving up future keepers. Shop around, don't give all the good players to one team, and make the keepers received be really good ones.

The second sentence provides good advice to us all. Dumpers will get the most value by shopping patiently to all of the teams who have the kinds of keepers that they want. We all have a responsibility to not to significantly affect the race for the money, so you should not give too much value to any one team.

And finally, and most importantly, assuming you have real value to trade away, go for quality keepers, not a large quantity of average keepers. The Busch Leaguers dynasty has been based on 2 trades each providing one incredibly great keeper: Albert Pujols at $3 and Eric Gagne at $2, each with 2 years remaining plus extension. No offense to Mr. Leaguer, but I think anyone in the league with only those two keepers plus $275 to spend would have finished the auction with a competitive, possibly winning team.

The first sentence is fascinating to me. Mr. Leaguer actually reduced reasonable trading to a formula, 1.5 times the present value. I really admire his attempt to provide some rational thinking about this.

That said, even he will admit that an actual formula is impossible because not every keeper's contract is equal. Looking at our team, Milton Bradley is a keeper at 7-23. We think Jayson Werth is a keeper, possibly extendable, at 6-1. Brett Tomko looks like a keeper at 6x-5. And probably Pedro Martinez is a keeper at 7-30. These are all different quality keepers and represent different values. And each team will evaluate each of these keeper values differently. None of those keeper contracts compares with Pujols at $3 or Gagne at $2. But you rarely get an opportunity to trade for an elite keeper.

Furthermore, dumped quality players are worth differing values to each contending team. A team with upside in specific categories might give up more for players that can help in those categories. If you’ve got a legitimate base stealer right now or a legitimate closer, some teams might pay well to fix those categories.

Larry thinks starting pitchers are getting no respect because of open FAAB. I think this is baloney. Greg is going to get some decent value for Josh Beckett. And Larry is probably going to get value for Javy Vasquez, though not as much as Beckett. After all, I can still remember that opening day outing by Vasquez.

Also coming into play is the ratio of teams playing for this year versus teams playing for next year. So far only two teams have said uncle, though there is another team floundering at the bottom with only 25 points. Nine teams are at 47 points or more, so it’s theoretically a sellers’ market. This will change later in the season, but for now the dumpers are in a good bargaining situation. Furthermore, we still have 2/3 of the season to play, so a dumpee gets the benefit of the players for 100+games. It’s like the justification for paying big FAAB money for a crossover player at this time in the season.

In answer to the Cartel’s question, I’d say he should identify players he’d like to trade for, and then target those teams. Identify what those teams need to win, and offer that. If the keeper you want on that team is critical to the team’s strategy, you have to replace the stats or don’t waste your effort. And take the initiative. Don’t wait, or else you’ll only be talking to the Old Rips.

But I still admire the attempt to evaluate a reasonable average ratio for a dump deal. There probably is a complicated formula that could be developed, but there are just too many variables for me to figure out. I just have to fly by the seat of my pants.

No Cigar

The Giants and the have been fading fast. It’s always easier to write when things are good.

I’m heading shortly to the Bohemian Grove to stock up on new jokes with which to torture Mark, so I’ll be offline until Monday. I got an invite for the Spring Jinx. A couple of years ago I went up for a few days during the summer encampment. At my first lunch I downed a martini, had some wine with lunch, and then finished off the meal with a cigar. The cigar pretty much finished me off for about 24 hours. Never again.

In the meantime I leave our team in the hands of the Doc, to screw up as he sees fit. All trade offers go to him this week.

The Giants look sick, with no hitting and mediocre pitching. It’s amazing they have won this many games. They need Schmidt and Noah and Tomko to start winning some games fast. This is not all about Barry, speaking of whom, Ken took the under on our bet about Barry playing 50 games this season.

Hawkins looked fine yesterday, giving up a pinch grand slam yesterday to Chase Utley. Hobo owns both Hawkins (who they offered to us last week, but didn’t follow through) and Utley. Is your pitcher giving up all the pieces of a grand slam worse than your hitter hitting a grand slam is good? Is that English? Utley has turned out to be quite a nice $13 piece – 9/25/5/.307. We were the bidders at $12, and we could have had him for $14. Instead we paid $11 on Eckstein, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t Utley. Anyway, back to Hawkins – it’s clear that yesterday’s outing keeps Tyler Walker the closer for a while longer.

The Pecklers have stopped hitting for BA. There isn’t much you can do about that. We’re still in 2nd in homers, but the BA needs to go up on its own. We’re probably getting closer to blowing off steals, as it’s going to be might expensive to fix that category. That will make Matt Lawton available, as well as Eckstein. Bolster our other categories and they can be yours.

I’m not sure how the Cappers faded below 60. I must not have been paying attention. If Ken wins that under bet on Bonds, that will be bad news for George. I see we passed them in ERA, another bad sign.

Wow, look at the Lickers! They are suddenly kicking ass. Next week I’ll take a good look at this team, but it proves keepers are over rated.

See you next week.