The Man in Blak

And, apparently, Joe Mauer has been diagnosed with some kind of a stress reaction in his left fibula. They're dropping like flies today.

Given the prospect logjam that the Dodgers put themselves this offseason, there might be a silver lining here. They can slide Betemit over to SS and have Andy LaRoche slide into the 3B slot; they could even move Nomar to 3B and bring James Loney in to cover 1B for the duration of Furcal's injury (whatever it may be). Either way, it could get some valuable playing time for a prospect that wasn't going to get much of a spot in the crowded lineup beforehand.

All right, so here's the list of interested parties that I've got so far: The Man in Blak the pinjockey UTBroward Queen Leelee J.T. - - - - - - - Anybody else?

If enough interest does come around, I'll post a full league constitution, but here's an informal writeup of the league concept, for those who may be considering it: FORMAT: 12 Team 5x5 Mixed Roto ESPN Fantasy League, with the following twists on the typical categories: Total Bases replaces HR Net Steals (SB-CS) replaces SB Quality Starts replaces Wins OBP replaces Batting Average Each team is allowed 15 Waiver/FA moves, but can make an unlimited amount of trades. ROSTERS: Each team will have a roster of 25 players with three DL spots (28 slots in total). One of the typical outfielder slots will be changed to a Center Fielder, just to induce a little more position scarcity: 9 Offense (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CF, OF, OF, UT) 8 Pitching (SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, P) 8 Bench Player distribution will proceed in two phases: Auction Phase (Sunday, March 25th via AIM Chat): Each team has a $150 budget to bid for 8 players. Selection order (i.e. the order in which owners nominate players for auction) will be determined randomly at the time of the auction. Draft Phase (Saturday, March 31st, ESPN Live Draft) - Owners fill out the remaining 17 slots on their roster through a serpentine draft. Draft order is determined by the average dollar value of each team's top three salaries from the auction phase (i.e. the owner with the least expensive top three gets to pick first in the draft phase.) AWARDS: The ESPN Fantasy Leagues allow for the creation of customized trophies, so I went ahead and created a couple of different awards outside of the standard league championship. Owners can earn the following awards at the end of the season: The Top Dollar Triforce of Power: Awarded to the league championship. The Golden Pierzynski Award: Awarded to the "winner" of the best trade of the season, as voted by the league. The Branch Rickey Memorial Draft-Day Bandit Award: Awarded to the best draft of the season, as voted by the league. The Meatloaf: Awarded to the last place finisher. Loser.

Hey, at least you made it to the draft. The autodraft punishment for my no-show was something fierce. (Shawn Green?)

I know that most people are probably double-booked, or perhaps even triple-booked, between the various TSM leagues that are running right now, but I'm considering putting together another fantasy league with a few of the ideas that Al and I bandied about for the NMB Top Dollar League a couple of years back. Some things would change, but the hybrid auction/draft would still be the primary idea. Would anybody be interested in joining another league?

The local reaction should be very interesting; remember, the Cardinals dismissed Mitchell Page during the 2004-2005 offseason, due to struggles with apparent alcoholism.

Let the "Free Whitey Herzog" hysteria return anew:

ROBRABIES INSTAED OF BEING WILD PEGLASUS WHY DONT YOU JOIN TEAM HAVOK !

AL East Boston New York Toronto Baltimore Tampa Bay Comments: I realize that it's tantamount to heresy, but I think that the Yankees have a decent shot of falling out of the playoff picture. The bench and rotation is as bad as it's been in years, and the bullpen doesn't look to have a reliable bridge to Rivera. ARod may bounce back a bit and Cano could improve further, but Mientkiewicz is set to waste away plate appearances at first and almost everybody else is one year removed from their glory years. The Abreu deal saved their season last year, but I can't hardly see a ripoff of that magnitude occurring again. As for the Baltimore/Tampa Bay battle, I give the edge to the Orioles, primarily because Tampa doesn't really have much pitching outside of Kazmir and maybe James Shields. AL Central Detroit Minnesota Cleveland Chicago Kansas City Comments: Francisco Liriano would make the Twins my favorite to take the pennant, but his absence (and the addition of Gary Sheffield) brings the Tigers to the forefront of the American League again. Cleveland will be in the hunt to the very end but, unless they manage to swing a deal for an impact starting pitcher midseason, their pitching will once again keep them out of the playoffs. The White Sox are in the same boat; bunting and grittiness can't save a pitching staff that looks to take yet another step backwards. The Royals won't be great - I don't even see them approaching 75 wins - but they could give teams absolute fits this year, especially if they find a way to employ an actual shortstop this year. AL West Oakland Los Angeles Texas Seattle Comments: The A's don't appear to be as strong as last year, but they should still have enough to take the weakest division in the league. With improvements to the pitching staff and the apparent karmic reward for Buck Showalter's departure, the Rangers are poised to do more damage this year, but will probably have to settle for spoiling the Angels' bid for the playoffs. The Mariners have a real shot at turning in the worst record in the AL this year, though the prospect of seeing Jose Guillen and Jeff Weaver match up against the Angels should make for decent entertainment, at the very least. NL East Philadelphia New York Atlanta Florida Washington Comments: The heightened expectations for the Phillies are more a function of the Mets taking a downturn than anything else; New York needs everything to fall into place to have a league-average rotation, let along a good one. Atlanta will probably do more spoiling than contending, but watch out for them if they manage to trade one of their prospects for a decent mid-rotation starter. Florida still doesn't have a real centerfielder and will need almost half a dozen players to repeat their career years to stay in contention. The Nationals may very well lose 110 games this year. NL Central Chicago Milwaukee St. Louis Houston Cincinnati Pittsburgh Comments: It will be a very tight race for the NL Central crown, but I think the Cubs can edge out the Brewers by virtue of a stronger offense. The Cardinals are in the same boat as their 2006 NLCS opponents - there's a lot that needs to fall into place for that rotation to work, most notably the addition of The Braden Looper Experience. The Astros should be a great team next year, once Pence can take the outfield and Burke can supplant Biggio at the keystone, but they look to be in a re-tooling year this year; don't be surprised if the Reds leapfrog them, especially if Homer Bailey makes his debut early on in the season. The Pirates will be pesky, as always, but I don't see them going too much farther than their usual 70 win output. NL West Arizona San Diego Los Angeles San Francisco Colorado Comments: Thanks to the overall mediocrity of the NL, I think it's feasible to see another bottom feeder reverse their fortunes very quickly and the Diamondbacks look like they could be in the driver's seat for this year, with all of their young talent finally coming into focus. San Diego and Los Angeles will make it a tight race all the way down to the last year of the season, but the holes on offense for both teams may be too much to overcome. The mania over the home run record should help distract from the fact that the Giants are a really bad team; the Rockies will be much closer to toppling them for the glory of fourth place than you'd expect. Playoffs ALDS: Tigers over A's, Red Sox over Twins NLDS: Cubs over Diamondbacks, Phillies over Brewers ALCS: Tigers over Red Sox NLCS: Cubs over Phillies WS: Tigers over Cubs, in a rematch of the 1945 World Series. NL ROY: Chris Young - D-Backs AL ROY: Alex Gordon - Royals NL CY: Roy Oswalt - Astros AL CY: Johan Santana - Twins NL MVP: Albert Pujols - Cardinals AL MVP: David Ortiz - Red Sox

With Liriano out of the picture, the Tigers seem like a reasonable favorite to me, even though I think the whole division (even the Royals) will be even more competitive this season. Even though there are veterans (Kenny Rogers, specifically) that look to take a downturn, you've got other young players like Verlander and Granderson who are set to improve.

Dude, I voted already, on the first page.

Czech

Consider this thread inspired by the Exploding Star Orchestra, whose new album, We Are All From Somewhere Else, has been a bit of an obsession of mine for the last week or so. Assembled by Rob Mazurek on commission from the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute, the Exploding Star Orchestra was conceived as a snapshot of the Chicago avant-garde jazz scene, a big collaboration between all of the notable local improvisers (including a couple of members from Tortoise). The album is very good. There's some wankery in here (ambient/electronic and free-jazz alike), especially through the "Cosmic Tomes For Sleep Walking Lovers" suite, but the rest is almost like Henry Mancini on psychotropics, a well-reasoned big band take on Sun Ra's later futuristic exploits. So, why title the thread "The Chicago AACM Jazz Scene" if I'm just going to verbally fellate the Exploding Star Orchestra? Well, apparently, many of the members in the collaboration are a part of this AACM organization, which is short for the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. The Wikipedia article on the group states that "the musical endeavors of members of the AACM often include an adventurous mixing of avant-garde jazz, classical, and world music" which, on the surface, sounds like something I'd like to check out further. Now, I've already earmarked one of the collaborations, Frequency (which I've read is something of a "spiritual free-jazz"), as a pickup, but I'm curious if anybody else (Czech, you're local) has heard anything from the members of the AACM and would have any recommendations.

Czech Alkeiper

To really drill this down further, I think the idea of about whether particular innings are worth more in the context of the game is where casual fans and statistical analysts part company. Many casual baseball fans consider the ninth inning to be the most important and difficult inning in the ballgame; Jack Bauer even explicitly mentioned that you need somebody to "close out the game." Not only that, but the save statistic in itself focuses around the fact that the reliever finishes the game. And that's part of the problem for the more statistically-minded fans, I think; the save statistic is a real piece of crap. The worth of "proven closers" are measured by saves and these saves are accumulated more as a result of usage patterns, rather than skill. cheech13 had already mentioned the two World Series teams from last year as examples of teams that got by without a "proven closer", but let's take another look at the Tigers for a second. In 2006, Todd Jones piled up a ton of saves, even though the better reliever (Zumaya) was actually pitching earlier in the game, in situations that were arguably much more difficult than simply "closing out the ninth." Just about anybody would rather face Jones than have to deal with Zumaya, but you wouldn't be able to discern that from the save totals. And that's where sabermetricians have a problem - the stat doesn't really track reliever effectiveness as much as it tracks how many times a particular reliever closed out the game in the ninth with a lead. Though he performed admirably in his role in the ninth, Jones himself is a point in favor of the argument that just about anybody can have success as a closer, if you choose to define that success only by save totals.

Actually, you're talking about NMB, not SNKT, but the point still stands.

Then let's just keep playing along with him then, wink-wink smiley.

Can you really give Marvin that kind of credit? You really think he's been masquerading as a pitiful human being on a wrestling message board for, what, a couple of years now?

Unless they were able to snatch him away from Oakland for pennies on the dollar, I don't really see this as being a good acquisition for the Packers. Not only are his physical skills in doubt, but Moss hardly seems to be a good match for Brett Favre (who openly derided his star receiver a couple of years ago for holding out) or the young corps of receivers that Green Bay is trying to develop. I'm sure that lots of sportswriters will make comparisons to Jordan/Rodman (if they haven't already) but I can't quite find that kind of optimism for a malcontent that hasn't topped 60 catches in three seasons.

I agree with Vitamin X's recommendation to get in contact with a psychiatrist immediately. The hapless self-loathing (along with the overt willingness to share it with complete strangers on the internet) may not warrant attention, but a panic attack is indicative of real physical stress from your mental state, whatever it may be.

I've read through Gibson's "sprawl trilogy" and I love it, but I haven't checked out any Neal Stephenson yet, if only because I get the impression from reviews that Stephenson uses a lighter, more comedic, tone. (It doesn't seem like a good fit with a cyberpunk setting, but that's just me.) How true is that perception, in regards to his work?

Apologies if this has already been posted, but the New York Times recently published a fascinating article detailing the development of religion within human cognition: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine...417&ei=5070 You'll have to use Bugmenot to get in there, since it's NYT, and it's a very long article, but it's worth the time and the nuisance, if only because it actually frames the development of religion as an evolutionary adaptation for survival. Very long excerpt below:

??? I read the excerpt and would be interested to read the rest of the article, but I can't get past the login screen. I tried bugmenot in both the address and password fields, and that didn't work so I guess I don't know what you're talking about. Where can I get an ID/password to read this? Oh, sorry about that - I should have linked that text to the Bugmenot website, just in case people hadn't heard of it. It's a page where user/pass combinations are posted to gain access to restricted websites, such as the New York Times. Well, the intent was to post an article that had a different scientific take on religion and how it fits into the human consciousness. Most of the discussions that I have seen involving science vs. religion always focused around philosophical disputes, but this article actually examined the function of religion itself within cognition; I thought it was an interesting read, so I posted it here.