White Sox: Winners for a day.

Zach's song of the week: "Flathead" by the Fratellis. I got home early one day, turned on the TV, and by some stroke of luck they actually had a video on MTV. I heard the song, immediately downloaded the entire CD, a bad habit of mine, and the song sucked me in. I get into music lulls when I'm not sure what to get next (The Shins' "Wincing the Night Away" is an example of a follow-up that I haven't loved yet) and this was a welcome jolt of power-pop.

Speaking of music, I was at the Braves/White Sox game last night. I like the concept of intro music. At last year's AUFL draft, we had intro music for each team in the first round, followed by intro music suggested by someone else for the second. I was surprised to hear "Epic" by Faith No More (might have been Craig Wilson). The intro music was very short, like three seconds, before the at-bat started. As for the game, it reminded me of one thing. Baseball is a tedious sport in a short-attention-span culture. The pauses are much greater than the actual action. I know this is the case in football as well, but things seem to be in motion all the time and the clock helps with the idea that time is passing and you only get so much. Maybe the reason why the tedium is difficult to handle is that the giant 100-foot jumbotron is constantly showing something. There are contests every half-inning. The Titans have something like this, where some poor schmuck has to find random people in the stadium, ask them a trivia question, and give them prizes. This works at a football game because it happens three or four times in a game. At the baseball game it seemed to happen nearly every half-inning. I think the reason why they do it is that the poor person has to actually try to get the answer right. In the six years I've gone to Titans game, a question has been answered incorrectly once. We like predictable happy endings, which explains the phenomenon of the chick flick.

The game itself wasn't too exciting. I did enjoy the result. Mark Buehrle, destined to get a Zito-esque contract this offseason, looked shaky in giving up a homer to Chipper Jones in the first. After that mistake, he was solid, pitching seven innings. In trivial matters, Buehrle and Zito had two of the four slowest fastballs recorded by starters in MLB last year. I'm guessing that Tim Wakefield made the list as well.

The White Sox seemed to want to win this game more than the Braves. The Braves used five pitchers, only two of whom will be major contributors this year. Chuck James gave up two runs in four innings and didn't seem tired. Podsednik and Thome didn't start. Alex Cintron played third while Joe Crede was the designated hitter. I was glad that they didn't play by NL rules, although Chris Woodward as the Braves' DH in the nine hole was amusing. In the seventh inning a guy wearing jersey 85 with no name replaced Jermaine Dye. I later found out it was Ricardo Nanita. He's not what you would call a major prospect.

Matt Thornton getting the save and Bobby Jenks pitching the 8th was interesting. I doubt it means anything.

The crowd was sparse, and there were a lot of White Sox fans, most wearing World Series gear. There may not be many of us, but we buy our share of merchandise. I did notice that most Sox fans didn't have player-specific stuff, while Braves fans mainly had Francouer and Jones jerseys. I still miss Frank Thomas.

White Sox Part Two

Let's look at Darin Erstad for a while. He was the number one overall draft pick by the (then) California Angels in 1995. In addition to playing baseball at Nebraska, he was the kicker on the football team. His career peaked in 2000 when he had 240 hits, 25 homers, 100 rbi, 28 stolen bases, and batted .355. He has not hit 20 homers in a season since. In fact his slugging percentage has been below .400 every year but one since Erstad won his single Silver Slugger. The Sox want Erstad to play center field this year. He's played 27 games in center since 2003. He played a lot of first base with the Angels since he was injury prone in the outfield.

Brian Anderson was the starter in center field last year. He was terrible at the plate, hitting .225 with a .290 on base percentage. His defense wasn't much of a drop-off from Aaron Rowand, traded to the Phillies in the Jim Thome deal. Anderson could develop into a .260, 15 homer type guy. I don't love picking up an over-the-hill veteran to block the path of a young guy with potential. It happens in baseball all the time. Even if Anderson doesn't start, he'll play a lot since Erstad will make a few highlight-reel catches then break something.

Jermaine Dye has had an interesting career. He was part of the Braves' sickeningly young outfield in 1996. Then the Braves let him go to the Royals, where he floundered for two years before finding his power stroke. He went to Oakland, missed most of 2003, came back pretty well in 2004, and moved on to the Sox. His 2006 was a career year for sure, although his 2000 stat line in KC was nearly as good. When Konerko slowed down and Thome missed time, Dye kept the team going. He's going to be a free agent after the season, and he'll be 34 next year, so I doubt that the Sox will keep him. Ironically, Dye was born on the same day as Magglio Ordonez. As a somewhat cheap fill-in for Ordonez, who signed with the Tigers two years ago, he's been a surprise.

Rob Mackowiak and Pablo Ozuna are backup outfielders. Mackowiak has a gun in center but must have other deficiencies because he'll probably only back up the corner spots.

With guys like Ryan Sweeney and Jerry Owens as the next wave of outfielders, the Sox might have to go the free agency route to replace Dye next year. Hopefully it goes as well as when Ordonez left for supposedly greener pastures.

I'll be at the Sox/Braves exhibition game tonight. Considering that I'm writing this at 5:45 a.m., I doubt that I'll see the whole thing.

Why do they hate the White Sox?

Two years after climbing the proverbial mountain, the White Sox are all but forgotten in the baseball landscape. Most prognosticators have them as a top-ten team, but give them hope to finish no higher than third last year. I assert that most preseason predictions are made to sell magazines, newspapers, and get hits to Web sites. Because of that, the creators of said predications have a tendency to laziness. Most successful 2006 teams are predicted to do the same in 2007. Heck, the White Sox were considered one of the top contenders to win the World Series last year. No one would predict that their starting pitchers had been overtaxed in 2005 and that some of the key contributors in the bullpen would succomb to injuries and suckage.

Of course the Sox didn't spend bajillions in free agency, the only way that teams get bumps in season previews. Look at the Cubs. They spent more than $300 million, most of it unwisely, and went from last place to second in the Central in most experts' eyes.

There are too many variables to accurately predict how teams will do when you have a 162-game schedule, 25 roster spots, and a division in which every other team appeared to get better.

I have no idea how Scott Podsednik will return from groin surgery. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a bad surgery to have. It's especially bad when your only above-average major league skill is speed. The Podster has four years of ML service. In the odd years, he's hit nearly .300. In even years, it's more like .252. He's stolen at least 40 bases the last four years. What's odd is he hit 21 home runs in his first two years and three in the past two. You'd think that he would have more doubles the past two years but that number has remained steady. In Milwaukee he played 154 games both years. In Chicago he's averaged 134 games a year. Can we expect more than that this year?

The Sox really don't have another potential leadoff guy. Pod's the guy. Darin Erstad seems like a fossil, but he's younger than me (ouch) and might be the next option. OK, this first installment hasn't left me feeling too optimistic. We'll see what happens next time when I continue through the offensive lineup.

Sold!

A baseball dynasty auction can be fun if you're in the right state of mind. I'm on day two of my second one this year and I haven't quite gotten into it yet. I'm already in two leagues and I think three is the tipping point. While any initial league auction/draft is probably the most fun, it's a lot of work and preparation, and if you haven't done the work, it shows. In this league, it shows.

When you have $100 million, 17 roster spots, and 50 contract years, staying on top of things isn't easy. 60 players go into auction in a two-hour period. This repeats five times, so 120 players get signed or go on the market every 24 hours. At the end of these five waves, you better have a core of players. You also better have spent wisely. If you gave Francisco Liriano a three-year deal last summer, you have to eat at least one of them as he recovers from shoulder surgery. Keeping contract year and financial flexibility in future years is critical as each year brings additional free agency periods.

At the end of the first wave, my team looks like this. I'll have Matt Capps, a reliever, and Orlando Cabrera, a shortstop. Ian Kinsler and Scott Olsen are in the yellow, which means I have a contract offer similar to one or multiple other teams. I made offers that were easily eclipsed for Jeremy Bonderman and Jesse Barfield (seeing if the market was better or worse than that for Kinsler). Last year I was nearly broke by the end of the second wave. Guys got bargains on the final couple of waves since there were fewer teams to compete.

The Titans signed former Missouri WR Justin Gage. The former Chicago Bear caught four passes last year. His career high is 31 receptions. At least his knee isn't blown out. Last year the Titans made something out of a former Bear castaway receiver in Bobby Wade and Wade signed a free-agent deal with the Vikings. If Gage equals Wade's 33 catches for 461 yards and two scores, he's all right in my book. I don't know if he's a slot receiver or just roster fodder. The Titans also signed linebacker Ryan Fowler from the Cowboys. Fowler has a career high of 21 tackles. Maybe he's a good special teams guy with upside. The Titans actually look OK at LB, although any help with depth will be appreciated. I guess eight figures is what gets a solid backup LB these days. $5 million is guaranteed. Yikes.

Bracket Buster

I picked the right year to stop caring about the NCAA tournament. There were 16 games yesterday. Two had close finishes. There were three upsets, and two of them were in 8/9 games, which are pretty much a push. I watched the last ten minutes of the Duke/VCU game and enjoyed it almost as much as if I were watching the Ravens lose. I'll watch a few minutes this afternoon while getting my hair cut and I'm sure that it will be off and on this weekend, but I won't go out of my way.

My fantasy baseball draft was this Tuesday. I signed up for my Yahoo league mere hours after the leagues opened up, and I was lucky to get an evening time for the draft. It's always tough to have a draft weeks before the season starts. None of the key position battles have been figured out, and taking a post-injury guy is a big risk. I read extensively, but so did the rest of the league. Well, most of the league. One of our owners had trouble figuring out what a "P" was toward the end of the draft. He's one of the owners who finished ahead of me last year in my first non-playoff season ever. I went pitcher-heavy and didn't pick a true 3B until the 18th round, as the position was so deep. After hearing rumors that Rich Aurilia will hit cleanup for the Giants, behind Bonds, I had to take a chance with him. How many clean-up hitters have eligibility at all infield positions? Yeah, he's old, but where's the fun without risk?

I'd also like to congradulate the Titans for finally making a solid FA move. If the Pacman legal issues resolve themselves, and I think they will, the Titans have a solid secondary at least. RB, WR, FS, and the entire defensive line minus VandenBosch worry me now. I wish that they'd just give Fisher his extension and get on with it.

Let's Play Four

I’m not proud of myself. Football season seems a hundred years away, and the Titans are apparently waiting to hear if Bam Morris wants to be their starting running back next year. There are teams making crazy signings (Daniel Graham for $30 million), and others seem to be making out like bandits (Pats and Adalius Thomas, Rams and Randy McMichael). The only reason why fans get so nuts over NFL free agency is that the league has brainwashed us to think that this is a year-round sport. It really isn’t, but then again, people obsess over Britney’s hair and Anna Nicole’s final resting place, so if I have a choice of obsession, it might as well be sports related.

As I mentioned in my first blog ever, baseball is a superior sport when it comes to fantasy. There’s no reason for me to re-hash those arguments. Over the past few weeks I’ve returned to my “other” sport by creating endless Excel spreadsheets and trying to read every link in a Buster Olney article. Baseball without a doubt is not a year-round sport for me, although it fits better than the NFL. You don’t see NFL players spending their winter playing ball in Mexico and Venezuela, do you?

I have three leagues rolling over from 2006. The first is my trusty Yahoo league. It’s a simple 6x6 head to head league with friends and family. Last year I finished out of the playoffs for the first time ever. I’m trying to have a redraft state of mind. I failed miserably at that in my one redraft (technically keeper) football league, and my reward was an 11th-place finish. Leagues two and three are dynasty-contract leagues. One problem with dynasty-contract leagues is that the free agency in subsequent years is a relative bore. League one, home of the Buckhead Green Sox, contracted and wiped out all rosters, so I get to start from scratch. Signings like Albert Pujols for ¼ of a team’s total salary cap leads to such moves. My favorite part of any dynasty team is that initial draft/auction, and the year doesn’t feel the same without one. That’s probably why I’ve added one dynasty fantasy football league in each of the past three years.

The final league is a dynasty/contract league rolling over from last year. There’s a $100 million salary cap with $10 million extra after the “free agent blitz.” Don’t you wish that NFL teams had an extra $10 million socked away? That’s why they get the big bucks, probably on par with the average punter salary.

Going into year two, I have $13 million left for the FAB. My offense is stacked, I have six, maybe seven starting pitchers (Yusmiero Petit might slip into the Marlins’ rotation), and no bullpen.

Any player who made their Major League debut and is not on a roster is available. That means Daisuke Matszuka won’t be available until after the FAB. Only three teams have more money to spend than me.

The FAB works like this: You put guys in a first-offer queue. Each team gets to make a first offer to five players, and the offers go like a draft. After that, there’s 24 hours for teams to bid until the player stops accepting bids or the time runs out. Points are added to your GM rating for successful bids and taken away for poor ones. A good GM rating lets you see things like other team’s bids. Since my GM rating is 52 and the max is 100, I doubt that mine will go up very much.

I thought about playing it cheap and waiting the market out, but with so little cash out there I might as well be bold. I’m going for Mariano Rivera, since my bullpen is empty. I can offer him a no-trade clause, which gives the bid a little extra juice. During the offseason I did something that the Yankees never would. I signed Rivera last year for $8 million, and had the opportunity to extend him for $9 million. I let him go in hopes that the price would go down during the FAB. This is the kind of thing that would never happen in real baseball.

In the real world, I like what the White Sox are doing with their starting pitchers. Offering three-year deals is smart. I doubt that the Barry Zito will go as poorly as the Mike Hampton deal, but there’s almost no way that the Giants will get value out of the deal. On the off chance that Zito outpitches his deal, he’s stuck. Guaranteeing Javier Vazquez 11.5 million per year seems like lunacy, but in the current market it’s not a bad deal. Jose Contreras took that deal and from what I hear, Jon Garland and Mark Buehrle have turned them down. The Sox have Contreras until 2009, Garland until 2008, Vazquez until 2010, and Buehrle for this year only.

After the McCarthy and Garcia trades, the Sox have some interesting prospects in the minors. Jon Danks looks like an even-money bet to have a better career than McCarthy. Gavin Floyd may be a placeholder, or he might harness his talent. Gio Gonzalez is slight but has been excellent to date in the minors. Larry Broadway, an ex-first rounder, should make his ML debut this year. Neither Garland nor Buehrle have plus “stuff.” They just have track records. The Sox can’t afford four eight-figure pitchers forever. They’re going to need some outfield help soon, and the rest of the team isn’t exactly young.