BigbadB

Nothing to worry about here. Just do it. I took over a keeper team a few years back and there isn't anybody left on that team as of today. You are taking over a team that has been abandoned (for whatever reason), so what you do with the team once it is yours is all on you. The keeper league I joined has 16 teams and 10 minor league spots for each team, which could potentially roster 160 minor league players. If you don't know of 160 minor league players you wouldn't mind holding on your roster, you don't have to. You don't have to have any players in your minor leagues. But, once you join the league, you'll find yourself learning more about the minors and the players in the minors to help give yourself an upperhand when contructing your team for future years. Keeper leagues can be a lot of fun. To give you an idea, here is my current minor league team: Position Players: Geovany Soto, Jacoby Ellsbury, Vladmir Balentien, Andy LaRoche, Ian Stewart Pitchers: Adam Miller, Eric Hurley, Max Scherzer, Carlos Carrasco, Dan Moskos Several of these guys will likely graduate to the majors this year (Soto, Ellsbury, Balentien, LaRoche, Miller, Hurley and Scherzer) which will allow me to restock my minor leagues via trade or free agent acquisitions. Minor leaguers (those who qualify to be minor leaguers like the one's listed above) do not count towards the cap restrictions for the major league team. If you have heard of all or most of the guys in my minor leagues, then you already know enough guys to have a well stocked minor league team, or it won't take you long to learn about them when you see the value it brings to your team. Not knowing much about owning a keeper team isn't what will concern the other managers in your league. In fact, they will enjoy watching you finish in last place if you value guys like Craig Monroe or Corey Patterson. The important thing the other managers in your league will want is someone who will manage the team all season long. Most of the other managers in that league will be happy to help you get started also. But, chances are pretty good that you won't be overly impressed with the team you inherit. I sure didn't like mine. But, through trades, drafts and drops, I like my team going into 2008. At the end of each season, teams have restrictions on how many points your team can have going into the next season. There are usually restrictions on how many players you can keep from one year to the next also. There are also exemptions for some players who have limited major league experience. To give you an idea of how that works, here is my keeper team for 2008. C- 1b- Conor Jackson (exempt) 2b- Rickie Weeks (points towards cap) SS- Stephen Drew (exempt) 3b- Edwin Encarnacion (exempt) OF- Matt Holliday (LOTS of points toward the cap) OF- Milton Bradley (points towards the cap) OF- U- SP- Brandon Webb (LOTS of points toward the cap) SP- Pedro Martinez (points toward the cap) SP- Matt Cain (exempt) SP- James Shields (exempt) SP- RP- RP- In our league, you can't keep anymore than 10 players on your major league roster and your point limit is 2000. My guys add up to about 1920 points or so. With my minor leaguers, I basically have someone to fill every hole on my roster except the RP spots. All I need to do with the draft is improve at the positions that need the most improvement, like a better 1b to replace Conor Jackson. Because of the cap, there are generally pretty good players that get dropped off teams to meet the cap requirement that become available in the draft. Right now, and not every team in my league has dropped all of their players, guys like Carlos Pena, Todd Helton and Carlos Delgado could be available to draft with my first pick. Or, I could elect to draft a solid 5th starter like Tim Hudson. Or knowing Milton Bradley could be on the DL to start the season, I might want to go with Curtis Granderson if he's still available with the 7th pick. Bottom line, keeper leagues are fun and they are much more stable than your basic free leagues that owners abandon at the beginning of the season when they don't like who they autodrafted or abandoned when they found themselves out of the running by midseason. Keeper leagues give you a foundation for future years and everything you do this season can have an effect on next season. Just go for it. It's $10. You can find that under your couch cushions.

Spot on. San Diego isn't a secondary team for me, but most everyone who lives here is a Padres fan. They are on tv every game, and being a baseball fan in general, it's easy to find myself tuning to a Padres game, which generally starts several hours after a Cub game is long over. They have good broadcasters who make the game entertaining when the product on the field isn't so entertaining. If the Cubs didn't win (and they never do), I'd be fine with the Padres winning it all. It would be good for the people in this town to finally have something to cheer about. I never gave a crap about the Padres before I moved here. Now, I follow them because it's hard not to.

Alcohol.

His 2007 line against lefties of .225/.269/.494 is downright awful. And there's one less lefty in that division this week (Santana). I think the Tigers will come out of this okay. I didn't say the Tigers didn't do alright with this signing, I just said, Granderson now needs to hit lefties at a better clip, to be worth the money he's getting. When your lead off CF is hitting 84 XBH's per season and posting a 136 OPS+, who cares how well or bad he hits lefties?

How well do Crisp and/or Byrd play SS?

Anybody we know, or were you strictly a lurker? I was a regular at that joint in '01. Pretty much the only people I remember are you, NCCubFan...and that's about it as most seem to have changed their names. I never posted much, but when I did I was DiceMan. Played in a few yahoo fantasy leagues with people. Trying to make my comeback now. I don't remember you being in any of the fantasy leagues I was in, but I do remember you being in a Sporting News league I was in before I started participating in Yahoo. Some of the people from that league were Tehmpus (he organized it), Cubman15, BigbadB, and teencubfan. I believe Hosak was in that one, too.

What happened to Lofton? I thought he was a FA?

Oh, well then maybe it was CubCuse. I'll just accuse everyone of having played fantasy baseball with me until someone sticks or at least isn't sure. All I'm sure about is NC was in it and I took second. EDIT: Just went back and checked on Yahoo archives...I actually took third. Oh well. I was in one of NC's Yahoo fantasy leagues.

You would think so. Where I believe Brandon Phillips falls a bit from last year's numbers, I think Encarnacion picks up the slack.

Haven't heard that name in awhile. He graced us with his presence here early on. He still owns the NSBB record for distance in the Mod troll toss. Was hoggy actually a man? I thought I read he was half beast half human female. But, that's the beauty of it. NSBB does not discriminate in the mod troll toss. Hogcard still edges out Jabroni in distance.

Haven't heard that name in awhile. He graced us with his presence here early on. He still owns the NSBB record for distance in the Mod troll toss.

Wow. Good one. By the way, the way we are padding this thread, people are going to get all excited that something is happening with Roberts, only to find this fine emoticon debate. \:D/ I'm afraid I have to get back to work, anyway. :( Work? :banghead: Don't go back to work. This thread is keeping me from getting back to the weeklong misery of getting my taxes in order.

Do I need to be more polite to mods than I do to regular posters? That totally depends on how much you like it here. :D :wink:

Wow. Good one. By the way, the way we are padding this thread, people are going to get all excited that something is happening with Roberts, only to find this fine emoticon debate. \:D/

Curses. Foiled again! :cray:

Anybody we know, or were you strictly a lurker? I was a regular at that joint in '01. Pretty much the only people I remember are you, NCCubFan...and that's about it as most seem to have changed their names. I never posted much, but when I did I was DiceMan. Played in a few yahoo fantasy leagues with people. Trying to make my comeback now. There's still quite a few more posting here from those days, but yeah, even I have a tough time keeping up with the name changes. I'm sure you are aware that Tim was SanClementeFan.

His 2007 line against lefties of .225/.269/.494 is downright awful. And there's one less lefty in that division this week (Santana). I think the Tigers will come out of this okay.

Anybody we know, or were you strictly a lurker? I was a regular at that joint in '01.

I told you I was calling in the troups. This could get ugly folks. Take this, Tim! :tomato: And this! :tease:

:club: :aikido: That's it, I'm calling in the troups. It's time for an admin ass kickin'! :mod:

:club:

Basically what I'm getting at is that I find it less and less likely that Roberts will be traded to the Cubs.

It is true that Baltimore has some guys who aren't the best of 40 man roster people, but they will risk losing anyone they remove from the 40 man roster to make room for the Cub players coming back in a Roberts trade, which costs them more talent (in their eyes) than just Roberts. So, those players they get from the Cubs would need to be pretty special to take into consideration it will cost them Roberts and a player or two off the 40 man roster.

They probably won't, though. Is it even possible that the Orioles could ask for more than 2 players from the Cubs for Roberts? So far this offseason, the Orioles have traded Miguel Tejada for Luke Scott, Troy Patton, Matt Albers, Dennis Sarfate and Mike Costanzo, in which at least 3 of those guys are 40 man roster guys. They've also signed Roberto Novoa, Guillermo Quiroz, Greg Aquino, Chris Roberson and a few other guys that may or may not be 40 man roster guys, then add in another 5 guys in the Bedard trade with only Kris Benson being released. How many 40 man roster spots could they possibly have available? And the team still would love to be rid of Mora, Hernandez and Payton. Just thinking about it from this perspective, if Baltimore isn't interested in a Marquis/Colvin package (with Colvin not required to be protected yet), I'm not sure how these two teams work a deal that the Orioles can be happy with.

What are the odds that Bonds can request Joliet State Prison under the work release program?