Somehow I have still managed to make progress, if I’d managed to get this out yesterday I could have proclaimed my first visit to the top half of the table, I was briefly in 7th place! But this morning I’m not, I’m back in 8th. Definitely becoming more difficult to find spot starters, the likes of Cook, Wellemayer, Duchscherer, Blackburn, Galarraga, Parra and Jonathan Sanchez are no longer out there and, along with Chamberlain and Nolasco, I’m having to consider keeping Buehrle out of the free agent pool, that’s how thin it’s got out there, and not making a decision long term until Harang’s return from the DL sometime this week. WHIP and ERA have both improved in Harang’s absence, and WHIP is one of the few categories where I think I can make up some ground, so Harang is going to be on a very short leash.
The other category where there may be room for improvement is AVG but I must admit that I can’t see how to make an impact short of trading for someone like Ichiro who would give me STEALS and RUNS as well. Delgado seems to be transformed into the player he was a few years back and Casey Blake is performing well above expectation, just hope he can continue following his trade to the Dodgers.

It’s been a fairly flat couple of weeks, slipped back to 9th but still in touch with 7th and 8th places, 6 and 3 points ahead respectively. The All Star Game took a big piece out of last week and the week before was a week where nothing of significance was achieved. Quite pleased with myself for ending up with three closers, none of which are named Gagne, and it must be admitted none of which may have the job to the end of the season, Saito has gone down for the Dodgers and Broxton seems to have inherited the role, at least he got the save last night, Gonzalez pending the return of Soriano and Morrow pending the return of Putz, still I’ll take them where I can get them though I have a long way to go to make up points in SAVES but if they continue to perform well I might make some progress in WHIP. Harang has gone to the DL and opened up a roster spot, I’ve picked up Ricky Nolasco for a couple of spot starts recently and whilst he lost to the Philies last night I might hang on to him rather than put him back into the free agent pool. Spot started Buehrle last night for a win but not had much recent joy pitching and ditching. I’ll give Harang a couple of starts on his return from the DL but if there’s no improvement I’ll drop him.
Picked up Delgado and he has been in for most of the last couple of weeks and been doing very nicely thank you, Giambi has definitely cooled off for the moment. AVG looks like the place I can target a few points with a number of teams not too far ahead. As I have a bit leeway in power numbers I’ve picked up Kaz Matsui to see if he will give me some AVG and RUNS and whilst he has a few SBs for the season, he’s not been stealing recently so may be looking elsewhere.

Now I’m not a spiteful sort of guy, at least that’s what the people who don’t know me believe, but I have to say that I am delighted to see that Chambers’ Olympic career has been unceremoniously tossed down the crapper by the High Court. He always was an unlikely challenger to the BOA’s bylaw, of banning drug cheats from ever representing GB at the Olympics even though they may have served bans imposed by other sports bodies, having run a laughable PR campaign and an equally poor legal campaign. His attempts to redeem himself, in a PR sense have been perfunctory and the timing of the legal moves were a transparent attempt to railroad the court in to considering only an injunction against the BOA’s bylaw and not a full examination of it’s legality. It can’t have escaped the court’s notice that this was primarily about Chambers’ earning potential subsequent to the Beijing Olympics and not about his desire to represent his country at the Beijing Olympics. To the people who suggest he has served his time and should be allowed to compete the simple answer is, ‘no, he hasn’t’, he has served the part of his punishment handed down in his 2 year ban but a concomitant of this ban, by virtue of the BOA bylaw which has been in place ever since Chambers has been competing, is that you cannot compete at the Olympics. This is not some sort of post facto bolt on but an inevitable consequence of, and an integral part of, the punishment, part of the ‘time’ you have to do for the crime.
Chambers’ cheating has robbed clean (we all hope) athletes of funding, resources, opportunity and maybe some glory, dissuaded some from entering the sport and persuaded others to leave it before their time.

So the A’s have pulled the trigger on a deal for Rich Harden, no surprise there, they have been cosseting him since his return from the DL to ensure that he appeared to be a prime piece of trade bait. And this is exactly what he was, but did the A’s get a prime return? Forget Hudson, Haren, Zito or Mulder, Harden’s ‘stuff’ was the best I’ve seen from an A’s pitcher in recent times; if he’s on the mound, he’s dealing and the Cub’s will benefit if he can stay healthy. The Cub’s obviously felt they need to make a move after the Brewers got Sabathia, and I believe they got the better pitcher in Harden, so why did the A’s feel the need to part with Gaudin as well? Harden for Gallagher straight up would just about work for me, throw in one or more of the prospects and I think that looks like an equitable deal. Including Gaudin breaks the deal for me, there would have been other suitors for Harden, and Gaudin if he was on the block, before the trading deadline three weeks hence and Beane is usually happy to display his brinkmanship skills. The Cub’s have strengthened their rotation and their bullpen at the cost of a spot starter and a bag of balls, with all due respect to the other parties involved. Clearly the management approach will need to be very different in handling Harden vs. Sabathia; Sabathia is a horse and the Brewers have said they will not be looking to sign him long term so they can pitch him ‘til his arm drops off, which is most unlikely before the end of October whereas Harden will still need careful monitoring to see him through to the end of the post-season and somehow they have managed to leverage this argument with Beane to the point where he gave up Gaudin.

Just checked the listings for FIVE to confirm that they will be showing the Yankees/Red Sox game on Sunday night, in which the Sox should be sending Tim Wakefield to the mound. This will be the second time in two weeks that they will have shown a Wakefield start having shown his outing against the Diamondbacks and Randy Johnson, he’ll now be matched up against Joba Chamberlain. I would never, ever start Wakefield on my fantasy team but there is no pitcher I like watching more when it comes to the real thing. I believe there is only one other knuckle ball pitcher in the Majors, possibly with Tampa Bay, but I’ve never seen him pitch. The game against the Big Unit was a wonderful contrast, Johnson’s mid nineties fast ball, high eighties slider against Wakfield’s high fifties knuckler and low seventies fast ball. And who’s fast ball was more hitable? Johnson’s. Wakefield’s throws over to first base are harder than his fast ball to home plate, I guess if he threw his fast ball harder his motion would change and tip his pitch to the hitter and even if he got the fast ball up to the low eighties then that’s just batting practice for a Major Leaguer if he can recognise it.
Even though I have Chamberlain on my fantasy team, and need wins, as long as he doesn’t get torched I would be happy to see him lose this one to Wakefield.

Speak it softly but I’ve managed to claw myself up to 8th place. Just tweaked the spreadsheet that I use to crunch the numbers(yes, I know it’s a little sad but I do enjoy playing with Excel) and find that the points split between hitting and pitching is still much the same as it was when I was in 12th, I had thought that I might have been improving on the pitching side but I find that I’m so far back of the nearest teams ahead that, whilst the numbers have been improving, I haven’t yet managed to pick up a lot of points despite some saves starting to come in from Morrow and Gonzalez, vulture wins this week from Broxton and Ramirez and a combined 10.1 innings of zero ERA from Morrow, Gonzalez and Ramirez along with a good number of Ks.
The hitting was starting to look like I thought it should on draft day, before last night, which didn’t go so well, I started 5 of 8 position players who had been hitting .400+ in the previous week and the other three, plus one on the bench, were high .300s, with occasional power outbursts and decent RUNS and RBI numbers. Haven’t done anything with the personnel on the hitting side, after thinking last week that Rolen would be the one on the hot seat should there be anyone on the waiver wire that I would want to pick up, it’s now Jesus Flores. It would seem that he’s either nicked up or gone into a platoon at C as he is now doing a lot of pinch hitting, and not very successfully. After Edwar Ramirez got lit up a couple of times shortly after I picked him up I was ready to dismiss Max Kellerman, (1050 ESPN Radio, New York) as just another Sabermetric freak but after the numbers he’s put up recently and seeing Ramirez pitch last night I might give his analyses another chance, his latest being that Carlos Delgado’s struggles could be due to deteriorating eyesight, this conjecture being based on the extreme splits between day and night games. Delgado is on the waiver wire and I’m thinking about picking him up to go in on day games at 1B, if Giambi starts to cool off, or Util. The best player on the wire at the moment might be Ryan Church but if I drop Flores to pick him up then 4 of my 5 bench spots would be filled with OF but maybe with another couple of weeks of production I could flip him, or one of the other outfielders, for a decent arm though there is still no trading at all going on in this league.

I won’t presume to pronounce on the merits of the expenditure of £4bn (as of today’s estimate, didn’t hear if that included the aircraft fit or not), force projection capability vs. properly equipping the currently deployed personnel. But I am intrigued by the choice of names; Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales. My sketchy naval history ends at the conclusion of the Second World War, so subsequent to that time there could have been other ships with these names but if so I don’t recall hearing of them. I don’t believe either name has been used for an aircraft carrier. PoW is a particularly interesting choice as I believe it’s immediate predecessor had the notoriety of being the first capital ship, able to freely manoeuvre and whist in open water, to be sunk, along with Repulse, solely due to aerial attack when attacked by the Japanese in the Far East in 1939 or 1940. PoW was one of a class of five battleships King George V, name ship of the class, Duke of York, Howe and Anson, mounting 14 inch guns and built under the treaty agreements in force between the wars and limited to 35000 tons.
The last Queen Elizabeth I’m aware of was the name ship of a class of ‘fast’ battleships which came into service in the early stages of the First World War, comprising the illustrious Warspite, Barham, Malaya and Valiant, mounting 15 inch guns in a layout which influenced many succeeding classes for the Royal Navy and others. All of this class, with the exception of Queen Elizabeth, were present at Jutland as 5th Battle Squadron, where their mis-handling by the squadron commander, Rear Admiral Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas and the Battle Cruiser Fleet commander Vice Admiral David Beatty was pivotal to the outcome of the battle. Queen Elizabeth was present during the Gallipoli excursion until withdrawn when it was decided she was too valuable to risk in the restricted waters of The Dardanelles. Which I guess begs the question; if the Falkland Islands, say, were to come under threat again, would a £2bn investment be risked?