The Man in Blak

It's moments like these when I feel like I should apologize for the Pujols homer in the NLCS. (But I'm not gonna.)

Kind of an odd statement to make without comparative numbers for J.J. Hardy. who would be replacing Hall at SS. In addition to that, wouldn't Hall's extraordinary range at SS (but lackluster ability to field ground balls in his zone) actually be a point in favor of the argument towards moving him out to center field, where he can get more use out of his range?

Interesting blog post from Curt Schilling, regarding his opening day start.

You swim around and try to diffuse bombs that are set to blow up a dam. Your character maneuvers around like a pregnant whale, you have to try to avoid ruthless hit detection from the electric seaweed (I wish I could say I was making that up), and there's a time limit ticking down through the whole thing. Not only is it a real pain in the ass, but it's also a complete curveball when it comes to the pacing, as it's the second stage of the game.

John Smiley! And I think Crosby's failure to develop wouldn't be quite as frustrating if the guy that Beane kept instead of Tejada (Chavez) emerged as the star player that he was projected to be.

I'm conflicted when it comes to BattleToads. It's muddled by some of the most infuriating gameplay tangents you'll ever come across, but I'll be damned if it isn't a complete game, in terms of presentation. The character design is hilarious, the graphics (for the NES at the time) are tremendous, the sound and music is great, and the animations go a long way in disguising what ultimately amounts to a mediocre beat 'em up. The first NES TMNT game hits a similar pitfall - the water level with the bombs is a real buzzkill, but the rest of the game holds up remarkably well as an action/adventure title.

It's odd to say, since he's been calling the Royals' games ever since they came into the league in the late 60's, but Matthews is one of the most underrated play-by-play guys in any sport, in my opinion.

I've got the Brewers making it into the playoffs as a wild card and I still feel pretty good about that prediction - they've got the talent and balance to potentially be the strongest team in the NL, believe it or not, but the numerous injury risks (Sheets, Weeks, Hardy) and chances for regression (Bill Hall, most notably) have tempered my optimism for their shot at the division.

I can understand Edmonds being down in the order (about a 200 point dip against lefties in his career) and I can even understand Duncan being held out of the lineup, but sliding Preston Wilson: Professional Strikeout Artist in the no. 2 slot and putting 216/.274/.321 in the heart of the order is space madness, October heroics be damned. And there's Kennedy with the keystone yips. Let's get through eight more, little d00d.

Lineups for Opening Night: METS: Reyes, ss Lo Duca, c Beltran, cf Delgado, 1b Wright, 3b Alou, lf Green, rf Jo. Valentin, 2b Glavine, p CARDINALS: Eckstein, ss Wilson, rf Pujols, 1b Rolen, 3b Y. Molina, c Edmonds, cf Taguchi, lf Kennedy, 2b Carpenter, p BANZAI in left field, Yaddy hitting fifth, and Kennedy buried in the no. 8 hole? We haven't even started the season and I already want to ring TLR's neck.

ESPN gets the rights for baseball's opening night, a rematch of the most exciting series from last year's playoffs, and they bump it to the Deuce for women's basketball? Srsly? Well, not only that, but Gagne could make for ideal trade fodder for Texas if they aren't in the race at the deadline, as seemingly every contender is looking for help in the bullpen as they come down the home stretch.

No "Live and Let Die"? Srsly?

And they fail to achieve even those lofty ambitions. Saliva gets my vote.

ESPN has made it official: Jaws will be Theismann's replacement on MNF: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2812834 The assertion that Monday Night Football is ESPN's "most important property" is hilarious and sad at the same time.

All right, thanks to everybody who joined in, but it looks like we're not going to have enough participants to move forward with the league right now. I'll bring it back around during the All-Star Break and see what kind of interest people would have for a second-half league.

I wouldn't have a problem with 1pm EST, but I'm not sure how everybody else feels about it. At this rate, unless we bring in some more competitors, we may have to put this off until about midseason, when people start to get an itch for second-half leagues.

It's a free league - this is the first year that ESPN has offered their service for free, so I thought it might be worth a spin, especially since they can cover the scoring categories for the league (unlike Yahoo!, for example). And J.T., I added you to the list above. Still looking to get some more people on board, though, so that we can figure out a good time on Sunday for everybody to attend the auction phase.

To be fair, though, the Ratchet & Clank series were developed by Insomniac Games, a second-party developer for the Sony consoles. As much as I like Ico and Shadows of the Colossus, I think Sony still has a long way to go before it can even touch the IP value of Nintendo's flagship titles.

I went ahead and opened the league at ESPN, so follow the link below if you want to join up or look around (password is "topdollar"): http://games.espn.go.com/flb/leagueoffice?leagueId=90947 I've never used the ESPN service before now, so if the site doesn't let you in or gives you some other form of crankiness, just let me know and I'll check it out after work. Of course, we're still looking for some more owners, if we want to move forward with this. Any other interested fantasy players out there?

You know, 'cause they can't see where they're going, without any eyes or anything.

Bitches be trippin'.

A lot of the leagues around here include OBP but, in general, a large majority of the fantasy leagues out there are your run-of-the-mill 5x5 with batting average. Of course, citing Ryan Howard is pretty silly anyway - he walked a lot last year and I don't really think that hurt his fantasy production that much.

I think the problem that they have with Burrell hitting after Howard revolves around the perception that Burrell Does Nothing But Strike Out A Bunch. There's "nothing more demoralizing" than to walk the best hitter on the team to get to an "easy" strikeout. I agree that they're not going to be able to add Ted Williams to protect Ryan Howard, but they may be looking for a hitter that makes more contact with the ball and puts the extra baserunner to use. Whether Bonds has a better overall year of production isn't the concern, though. The issue is that the Phillies want to maximize their possible return on Howard's production - Howard's going to produce one way or another, but opposing teams may be able to limit the damage more times than not by pitching around him. To put your Bonds example in a statistical context, Bonds' overall HR and OPS numbers may not be significantly impacted, but he'll lose out on opportunites to improve his WPA and ultimately help the team win the game.

ESPN's stats show that the Yankees got .250/.348/.455 with 29 homers out of 1B last season, which was good for 7th in the AL. Mientkiewicz does have a decent OBP, but do you see him approaching or even topping those numbers? True, but the defense is at first base, where you can arguably most afford to get away with a mediocre defender. Compared to the average first baseman, how many runs do you see Mientkiewicz's glove saving over the course of the season? If you're working from a baseline of 930 runs, then I would agree that you could definitely afford to trade off a bit for extra run protection. But do you see the offense reaching those levels again? For all of the injuries that hit the club last year, there was still an awful lot that went right for them - Damon posted the highest OPS of his career, Jeter posted his second best season ever, Posada had a fantastic year, and Abreu went batshit for 200+ plate appearances after the trade. They'll have a full year of Abreu and ARod may be expected to bounce back, but do you expect the rest of the lineup to maintain its production, without any possibility for injury? Pettitte didn't exactly set the world on fire for Houston last year; whatever he could potentially get back from a regression of his home run rate (which was, admittedly, a career high) will get offset by the move to the DH league, into a division that can hit. Though Igawa has looked decent in Spring Training, he's still unproven, along with Karstens and Rasner (neither of which have lights-out peripherals or anything). Britton was a nice pickup, but I'm not so high on Vizcaino - I can't see him keeping the four extra K/9 that he added last year, especially moving to the more difficult league. I agree that Hughes and Clippard are definitely looming on the horizon, the former much moreso than the latter, but my skepticism is focusing on this year - how much will Philip Hughes impact the Yankees' shot at the 2007 playoffs?

Not sure what you're looking for in an "impact on the batter at the plate" - the walk directly impacted Howard by taking the bat out of his hands. The manager felt that any hit would jeopardize the lead/game, regardless of who was on base, so they were willing to pitch to Burrell or Rowand, who they perceived as being an easier out. It may not have significantly dented Howard's stats over the whole season, but it directly affected his ability to positively impact the game, which is the greater tactical concern. If the idea of protection doesn't exist, then why have opposing managers given Barry Bonds a free pass in every ten plate appearances over the last five seasons?