The Pujols Contract

After hearing about all the news happening at the winter meetings this year I thought I should write a blog post about it. The Albert Pujols deal was a shocker. When I heard about it I couldn't believe it for two reasons. I was surprised that Pujols actually left the Cardinals. I was more surprised the Angels gave him such a ridiculous contract. 10 years and $254 million dollars. Pujols is going to be in his early 40's when this contract ends. He also got a no-trade clause which means that is going to be one expensive old guy sitting on the bench someday. Players of Pujols' size do not age well.
I think this was a very short-sighted signing for the Angels. They are probably okay with it if they get a World Series out of it before Pujols turns 36. You also have to be wondering what Jered Weaver is thinking when he just gave the Angels a discount last year. I understand that Pujols is the best player of our generation, but I hate contracts like this and I'm glad the Atlanta Braves never do things like this. Good luck Angels, hope you get at least 4 years out of Albert before he starts going downhill.

The End...The Pursuit Continues

I am hours away from being eliminated from my fantasy baseball playoffs. I will fall just short of reaching the World Series. My dream of winning that elusive title will just have to wait another year...at least. I will spend another winter trying to scheme and plan of how I will conquer the league next year. I continue to be one of the best managers in the league who has yet to win a World Series. It's starting to feel like a cruel joke. At the risk of sounding like a pathetic Chicago Cubs fan, "Next year will be my year." My pitching is young and good. A shrewd free agency move allowed me to grab Adam Wainwright and benefit from his likely comeback from Tommy John surgery next season. Chipper will anchor my lineup for at least one more year. I've also got more good players then I can afford to keep. I will spend the months leading up to next March's draft finding the perfect trade partner to bring one more superstar to my team. The only upside to my season ending, (if you want to loot at it that way) is that I will have more time to focus on other things. We are moving into a new house, my job has endless challenges to confront, and there are plenty of books on my reading list to get after. The Ringers will have to wait once more to hoist that beautiful trophy and then rub it in all my friends' faces forever.

Baseball is great, even for weird reasons

I was recently listening to the Baseball Today podcast on ESPN when I heard them talking about something that, to anyone's knowledge, had never happened before in the history of baseball. On Thursday, August 24th, 2011 the Arizona Diamondbacks trotted out an infield against the Washington Nationals of Ryan Roberts at 3B, John McDonald at SS, Aaron Hill at 2B, and Lyle Overbay at 1B. This might not seem odd, except for the fact that the Toronto Blue Jays put out the exact same infield on May 27th, 2007 against the Minnesota Twins. How crazy is that? How often do 4 guys play for 2 different teams at the same time in their careers and start a game together? The odds of this happening are ridiculous! You can find the box scores here courtesy of retrosheet.org and here courtesy of espn.com.

This is another reason why I love baseball. Not only are watching the games fun because of the action, but the stats and weird little quirks about the game are endlessly fascinating and interesting. I can't wait to see what memorable statistics this season and post-season will give us.

Your Head and Your Heart

This past week I encountered a situation with my fantasy baseball team that put my head in contention with my heart. As a huge Atlanta Braves fan, I've enjoyed having Brian McCann as my catcher. He is having an awesome year and putting up great numbers. I received an e-mail from a fellow owner saying he wanted McCann and was willing to offer me Hanley Ramirez. My heart was saying, "Don't trade Brian McCann. He's a Brave and you love watching him play for the Braves and your fantasy team." My head was saying, "Hanley Ramirez could be the best player in baseball. This could be your chance to get an awesome player for cheap." Hanley has been playing terribly lately and I thought it would be a great chance to get him for cheap. I ended up doing the deal. I traded Brian McCann (C), Darwin Barney (SS), and Chris Narveson (SP) for Hanley Ramirez (SS), Wilson Ramos (C), and Jeremy Guthrie (SP).
I have never won a World Series in the league. I want to really badly. My head was saying that I needed to make this move to try and accomplish that goal. I also thought that Hanley was playing poorly and that he can't possibly keep playing that badly. I thought I was buying low right before he really took off. Time will tell if my head or my heart was right about this trade.

Coaching

As some of you may know, I am the head coach of the Newell-Fonda Mustang high school baseball program. This is my first year as a head coach. We are halfway through the season, and it has been a year filled with challenges and also success. While our record is not fantastic, I believe our team is. My assistant coach and I have been telling our players all spring that if they make the routine plays, stay positive, and never stop believing they are out of a game, that victories would start to happen. On Saturday, June 11th, we won the AR-WE-VA baseball tournament in Westside, IA. It was a great day for our players and us coaches. The boys played hard and proud and believed in each other. We even fell behind in both games and fought back. It's so fulfilling to see your players succeed and hold their heads high when you've been telling them all along that they had that ability inside. I am so proud of my players. I am looking forward to a great second half of the season. Go Mustangs!

Draft Day

Draft day is one of the best days of the year. Mine is quickly approaching. March 19th to be exact. I have been so busy with teaching lately, that I honestly haven't really started my homework yet. I don't have very many players that I have targeted to draft and I haven't even really formulated my strategy.
In a year that is going to be pitching heavy, it's hard to justify taking a starting pitcher early when I'm keeping 3 starters and a reliever. That being said, if there's a pitcher on the block when it's my turn to pick that I really really want on my team, it would be hard to pass him up.
Which brings me to my next point, if I really like a guy and want him on my team, I might reach for him earlier than I probably should if I don't think he'll be there for my next pick. Here's my reasoning. I run my fantasy baseball team with half my head and half my heart. I have to like the players on my team, and would rather reach for a guy I really want and risk taking him too early, then sit back and watch him do well on someone else's team. I understand that it might not be the greatest strategy for success, but I like rooting for my guys all season long. I don't want to own Alex Rodriguez and then feel conflicted when I see him hit a home run on t.v. I want to always be thrilled when one of my players does well.
I'll probably always manage my teams with a combination of my head and my heart.

Fantasy Baseball Leagues-The Bigger, The Better

As Co-Commissioner of a 20 team fantasy baseball league, I find it difficult to understand how a 10 team league could be any fun. Every team would be stacked with all-stars. Where's the strategy? It's true that it's hard to find 20 managers who are active, but it can be done. We've done it in ours. It makes it a lot more fun because there's just more activity and buzz happening on the league message boards and draft parties are lots of fun and you can always seem to find somebody interested in talking trades with you. We've had to go through a process of weeding out some inactive managers over the years, but believe it or not, we've got a waiting list of friends who have asked to be in our league. That keeps everyone active because they know someone is waiting to take their place if they don't manage their team. If you are currently in a 10-12 team league, I highly encourage you to expand and reap the benefits.

Spring Training Has Started

It is awesome to see the ticker on ESPN displaying baseball scores again. This has been the longest off season of my life. I think mostly because I was awaiting the birth of my first child, which happened in February. My buddies in my fantasy baseball league have been lamenting along with me that this off season has nearly been unbearable.
Chipper Jones has been doing some running and sliding drills and the knee feels fine he says. I'll be able to relax a little more when he charges a slow chopper, fields it, plants and throws and his knee doesn't explode into pieces. Honestly, any time he plays this year is icing on the cake. After all the injuries in his career, I'm just thrilled that he's still playing at this point. Now I can watch the Braves and Chipper this summer with my daughter. She's a baby and won't know who he is, but when she's older I can tell her that she did in fact watch him.
I'm excited about the new look Braves. I think this team can compete and should be a lot of fun to watch. Not having Melky Cabrera on this team ups the fun factor by 478%.