I may have mentioned this before but in the world of fantasy baseball in general, and my team in particular, pitching sucks. Maybe the league of 14 teams and 21 players makes it too deep to be so dependant on pitch or ditch but I seem to be getting the shitty end of the stick at every move. I understand that these pitchers are not on rosters for a reason, inexperience, poor current form or generally just past record suggests future mediocrity, but give me a fucking break; Eveland, good current form, at home in a pitcher’s park against the light hitting Blue Jays; Doug Davis, 2nd start back after his cancer treatment, the treatment and his first start went well, against the, admittedly not quite so bad as expected Giants; Harang against the NL Central, basement dwelling Pirates all started for me this week and what did I get? Wins; 0, innings pitched 13, an ERA in double figures, WHIP about 4 and single figure Ks. Rasner gives me a quality start but can’t get the win, Nick Blackburn goes 8 1/3 strong, taking 3:2 lead into the 9th where Joe Nathan, one of the most reliable closers in the business pisses it up the wall. Looks like me and the Yankees are in the same boat right now and that boat’s name is Joba Chamberlain, there are suggestions that he may start as soon as Monday next week though everyone seems to agree that his arm’s not really stretched out enough since his time in the bullpen so it’s debateable if he is going to go deep enough to qualify for wins in his early starts. Finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired of Nick Swisher and cut him for Lyle Overbay (yes, that’s how bad it’s getting), a hot Frank Thomas has gone to the DL, so he’s also gone in favour of the slump busting gold thong sharing (don’t ask, if you don’t know, you probably don’t want to know) Jason Giambi. Julio Lugo ditched for Yuniesky Betancourt and with Gagne still on the DL I’ve grabbed Edwar Ramirez of the Yankees, who Max Kellerman insists is the reason Chamberlain is heading to the rotation and has yet to give up a run in 14 innings of work this season. Perez and Soriano have both started to pitch and are rolling along quite nicely, neither having given up a run in a combined 4.1 innings.
Did try to get something done by way of a trade, offered Utley and Napoli for Uggla and Jeter, didn’t think this would get done as it stood but was hoping I might get a conversation going but nothing doing so I’ll trot this bunch out for a week and see how we go.

The facts of the season so far are, 2nd place in AL West, 1.5 games back of the Angels, 28:23 record. We’ve just swept the reigning World Series Champion Red Sox in a three game series and in the process relegated them to 2nd place in AL East, behind the surprising Rays; so what’s not to like? Well, for Billy Beane, there could be quite a bit. Having failed to fully dismantle the team before the start of the season he’s now left with a number of pieces he would have liked to have moved, Street, Blanton and Chavez. Street and Blanton are both contributing and Chavez is on the DL and his rehab is not going well so what does Beane wish for right now? The team is having success, but still not attracting great crowds, so can Beane justify moving Street and Blanton to ownership and the fans? I’m sure he’s still thinking of moving them but he might now be wondering if he needs to replace them with established major leaguers and not prospects and this would require a major rethink of what he appeared to have planned for the next 2-3 years. A run of 5:20 over the next month wouldn’t bring a smile to his face but in the run up to the trading deadline it would feel like his life had become a lot less complicated.

Just been catching up with the news and I can’t believe what I’m reading, there seem to be some murmurings that Eurovision may possibly, ever so slightly, if you break down really closely, go into it in great depth with the very finest of toothed combs, in the opinion of a vanishingly small number of people’s opinions, just might be a little bit flawed?!?
No shit Sherlock, I hear the Pope’s Catholic and bears have been known to open their bowels in the woods from time to time also.
I can’t believe that anyone has taken this ‘competition’ seriously for decades. If we are going to continue to participate in this event then corruption, block voting and self interest are essential to ensure that the licence payer in this country never again has to contribute to the hosting of this anachronism ever again.

Another so-so week, no change in position but overall a few more points, in a little one man group of my own; the teams above me are ahead by 10+ points and the two teams below are behind me by 10+ points. The trouble with a so-so week is that the stats that I’m trying to move have another week’s worth of data and are that much more difficult to shift. Tried to get a win from Duchscherer, Eveland, Galarraga and Padilla and got squat, didn’t do any significant damage to WHIP or ERA but didn’t get much by way of K’s either. Gagne has gone to the DL and I’ve parked him there for the time being and picked up Rafael Soriano, also going to be parked on the DL for a while but should be back before Gagne and hopefully before Smolz who looks destined to take the closer job from Soriano when he comes off the DL. There just aren’t any saves or steals to be had off the waiver wire in this league, the best on offer are Kobyashi and Betancourt, both Indians and look likely to split save opportunities pending the return of Borowski. Picked up Chris Perez of the Cardinals as a long shot for some saves, he’s expected to take the closing job from Isringhausen at some point this season but he’s just up from the minors and presently just being worked into the bull pen. Considering picking up Julio Lugo in a fairly desperate attempt to get some steals from SS, all the other leading steals merchants that are available are outfielders and I don’t have roster room between Kemp, Ludwick, Granderson, Hart and Griffey. I guess this suggests that I ought to start trying to get some trades done.

So the electorate of the above borough decided to call time on the family Dunwoody, the Labour Party and Mr G Brown? Good for them, on every count. Gwyneth Dunwoody was a dreadful hectoring old harridan, a politico of the school that seemed to have no inclination to hide the view that if you didn’t agree with her opinion then it must clear to all and sundry that you were a cretin. I’m sure that her apologists will claim that she was an exemplary constituency MP, and this could well have been the case although Thursday’s result would suggest otherwise, but should this have been the case then this is where she should have continued to ply her ‘I know more and I know best’ flavour of politics. Now in the interest of full disclosure; I’m a contrary old git, I’ve been practicing this outlook for many years but just what was the Labour Party thinking when trying to foist another Dunwoody on it’s long suffering voters? I can’t recall ever voting for a candidate who has been elected in whatever constituency I have been living, but even if I had done so and they had proved to be the very epitome of a constituency MP and gone on to hold high office and discharge the function of that office to my absolute satisfaction I would not be voting for their offspring. Now that the ancient home of inherited privilege and nepotism, the House of Lords, is being turned over it seems the Labour Party believes it’s new abode is in the House of Commons? I’m reasonably sure that there is an initial distrust of anything that smacks of ‘dynasty’ and no matter what level of talent is brought to the table it seems to me to be an electoral handicap rather than a benefit.

This could just be a modern day classic; some of the very best offensive players in the league, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Holmstrom and hopefully Franzen will be back to go up against Crosby, Malkin and the most underrated player through the playoffs, Pascal Dupuis. All these going up against far from shoddy D with the likes of Lidstrom, Methuselah (a.k.a. Chris Chelios), Kronwall and Rafalski for the Wings and the less heralded but equally effective Penguins’ Gill, Gonchar, Letang and Orpik.
I can see nothing to dislike about this matchup, at least on paper, there ought to be end to end hockey but with some defence being played, might I suggest; like an All Star game but with hitting and D? I know my friend Millian at Blueline Hockey Talk radio is a little wary of it but I don’t think his concerns are rational, doesn’t like the Wings being there as they are a perennial playoff team and he’s suspicious that the league has had a hand in the Pens getting there with the way penalties are being called against their opponents. I don’t see this view is supportable, the best teams going into the playoffs were the Wings, Sharks, Pens and Canadiens and two of them are going to fight it out for the Cup and anything that looks even vaguely like an irregularity has to be put down to the vagaries of sport in the absence of anything concrete to the contrary.
Go Wings!!

Been doing nothing more than treading water in the standings this week, partly because my pitching stats are so far adrift of the teams immediately above me. One win each for Cook and Harang, who’s going again tonight in a tight one so far, spot started Eveland, get me a win but didn’t do any damage to my other numbers either, vulture win from Broxton but he also got blown up one night, ERA 36.0, as well, Gagne got torched whilst blowing his fifth save of the season last weekend and, essentially gave up the closers job on Sunday but came back Tuesday to record a save?! Sadly for the Brewers Gagne still looks like the man getting the bulk of the saves, in the mid to short term at least, Turnbow down in the minors, Riske on the DL, Mota blew a save opportunity this week and Torres has been patchy at best. The hitting has been steady but that’s not enough to move me up the table and there have been a couple of inexplicable trends which appear to be developing, both Matt Kemp and Ryan Ludwick have sat it out for consecutive starts but can’t find any reason for them riding the pine, not injured, both hitting well and whilst there are four candidates for the three outfield spots in each of their clubs I don’t understand why they got consecutive days off?

What do Scott Olsen, Braden Looper and Kyle Loshe all have in common? As of Thursday, they each had just one loss against a combined 13 wins, and who had them for each of their losses? Yes, unsurprisingly, it was me. The philosophy of fantasy baseball, as I understand it, is that pitching is a crap shoot and, as such, you do not draft pitching early because there are always spot starters available to fill up the stats to a decent level. Loshe was a little desperate but Looper and Olsen looked like fairly sound bets, if not for wins then to maintain decent WHIP & ERA but not so. On the upside the one spot starter that has exceeded expectations is Aaron Cook, coming up with his third win this week, beating Peavey no less, with 1.29 ERA and 1.25 WHIP over the three starts. But what am I to do with Aaron Harang? Another quality start, another loss, combined ERA 3.09, WHIP 1.10 and a record of 1-5, seven of his eight starts have been quality starts and to get his single win he had to hold down the opposition to just one run, he gets negligible run support. OK week on the hitting side, slipped a bit towards the end of the week, the bats just went to sleep. Still only Kemp stealing, I thought I had picked up Juan Pierre to pad the stealing stats but somehow he seems to have gone to the league leader, not sure how that happened?? Did pick up Ryan Ludwick who’s on a bit of a tear in St Louis but it’s difficult finding a spot for him in the outfield. Clement doesn’t seem to have started at catcher yet and starting to wonder how long I should hang on to him, might have been useful as trade bait, or to keep and trade Napoli, to get another arm.

Done absolutely no research on this, and a little after the fact as usual, but people of London town; just what were you thinking??? I do understand that the choices available were not ‘do I prefer the Aston Martin or the Maserati?’ but do you really want someone in charge who can’t even plan to comb his hair in the morning let alone plan the next word but one that’s likely to drop from his slack jaw? I can’t even ascribe the defence of form over function unless the form preferred is vacuous twat over dogmatic newt fancier. If incoherence, incompetence and crass stupidity has now become a valid political platform then I may have to consider a career change. So, people of London, good luck lying in this bed you’ve made. Can only hope that the term is just four years so the opportunity will come round before the London Olympics to redress this manifestation of mass hysteria and in the meantime the rest of us just hope he will spend a lot of time getting his hair done and the rest of the time sitting around with his thumb in his ass.

Well, much of the same with regard to highs and lows, Utley is the unquestioned stud and Harrang, despite another quality start, can’t get a win. On the hitting side Granderson, Martin, Kemp and Hart are all starting to make contributions with average, Kemp with steals, which has got me 4.5 points in the standings and 6.5 points in the RBI category. Torres was a good pick up with a vulture win, in the same game Gagne got a save, but he’s gone now to make room for spot starts. But they have been dismal with the solitary exception of Aaron Cook. Danks had an ordinary start earlier in the week and has already been pulled today after 4.2 innings, Scott Olsen was abysmal earlier in the week which negated the work by the relievers and Cook. Blake and Giambi are looking like they are on borrowed time, Blake’s position flexibility might incline me towards keeping him over Giambi and toying with picking up Jeff Clement, who has just come up from the minors, would initially be Utility only but should pick up catcher eligibility in due course. Up to 11th place and putting a little distance into the three teams below whilst closing to the teams above, another week like the last one would see me up to about 5th but this will not happen without a lot more from the pitching and I’m struggling to find spot starts that look like they have a possibility of gaining a win for me, let alone controlling ERA & WHIP.