Clogged Basepaths

You mean the next 75 starts, right? I want Womack starting at second until DLee gets back and Todd can take over. I'm sick of Neifi's sub .200 on-base and Hairston being just plain stupid. In no way was I suggesting Neifi should get the starts instead of Womack. I think I just threw up in my mouth.

You mean the next 75 starts, right?

“I think walks are overrated unless you can run," Baker said. "If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can't run, most of the time they're clogging up the bases for somebody who can run." That kind of talk is nothing short of heresy for those in the OBP-is-king camp. Baker, an old-school sort, doesn't seem to mind. "Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years?" he asked "Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to hit across the plate. That's the school I come from. "It's called hitting, and it ain't called walking. Do you ever see the top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10 do walk. But the name of the game is to hit." Yep. GREAT. More Neifi please.

To me, it's more of a situation of facades than anything. Hendry wants to keep his job, why wouldn't anybody? He puts together some teams that don't work. He's seemingly incapable of appreciating 'correct' stats or players, so he follows the Sox lead and puts out some bogus PR buzz about "defense + speed = smart ball!" He pacifies a large portion of (dumb) fans by overpaying for Pierre, and gets his extension. I mean, it worked for the Sox right? I don't know how many arguments I've gotten into with underinformed Sox fans who STILL think that they won because of small ball, not because of superb pitching. People hate nerds, it's science. Angry old dudes have been able to associate OBP with nerds. "NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS" - Homer Simpson

I can't find anything that better explains the problem with this team. As in, not how they are playing right now, but how they were constructed and expected to play. This, sadly enough, was sort of 'the idea' with this team. I gave up all sane hope for a playoff run in June last year, I held back doing so when we signed Jones in the offseason, maybe I was too cautious. This team is even worse than I expected them to be, which is pretty sad.

It has been found (by people smarter than me, usin' fancy math) that batting order doesn't really matter. The issue isn't so much that we have Pierre or Neifi batting in the wrong place in the order, it's that having them IN the order is the wrong place to have them. The place in which they bat is the least of the problems. Oh, also Jacques Jones is destroying America.

Also, The owner being taken advantage of tends to not care as much as others, not even that he isn't baseball savvy, he just doesn't care. So if somebody bugs the crap out of him about a player (like Manny) there is a decent chance he'll come around to the idea. It seems as though the thing coming out of this, is a creation of a 3 person (out of 8) "commish group" of sorts, that will have to ok any trade involving a top 10 or 20 player (preseason, or year to date).

The league is just full keeper dynasty - it's only 8 teams, so the rosters are fairly sizable. With the smallish ownership, the depth is pretty good, making Murton less valuable. It's just a head to head league, 14 cats, making SBs less of a priority than typical 5x5 roto leagues. This trade has created quite the furor in the league, to say the least. I appreciate all the well thought out responses.

Haha.

I'm the commish in a dynasty league, and have never come across something so awful. Trade of Manny Ramirez for Juan Pierre and Matt Murton. I'm considering blocking the trade (first time ever), thought I'd toss this out there. It's a smallish league, so Murton's value is almost nonexistant (the player who is giving up Manny is actually dropping Shannon Stewart to make room for Murton). Thoughts?

not only is this inappropriate, it's the worst kind of inappropriate - the kind a 13 year old girl uses because she thinks she's hot stuff after beating me up - how many times do i have to explain to you, little girl - the sun was in my eyes! BELITTLE'D!!! or CONFUSED'D!!! you decide

Please show me the #'s that somehow equate Zito to Randy Johnson. And, as for his playoff #'s - small sample size? Anyone? No thank you to mediocre, expensive starters.

AJ Pierzynski for Joe Nathan Boof Bonser Francisco Liriano This one hasn't gotten as bad as it's going to get either.

I would rather find out in April whether or not he can play so then we can figure out what to do with him. If he hits, great. If he doesn't, let him go. Exactly my point. Just more concise, heh.

Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere (can't find a thread on it) but Cubs.com is reporting Aardsma is up in place of the DL'd Pagan. Despite usually not liking the 12 pitcher staff, I actually like this. The more potentially useful options we have down there, the less likely (hopefully) Baker is to run Eyre/Howry/Williamson into the ground with consistently longer outings. If Novoa/Ohman/Aardsma can not implode, hopefully Baker won't feel the need to over-extend the setup guys.