Jose Canseco simply cannot stay out of the news.  Anyone interested in a pool to bet on the next time Jose Canseco makes himself newsworthy?

It’s become increasingly likely that, barring an injury or meltdown, Hurricane and I will win both our fantasy baseball leagues, currently leading them by 8 and 5.5 points.  With fantasy hoops and hockey finished for the year, and football season three months away, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.

Anyone interested in starting a fantasy wedding league?

Every two weeks, I post the top ten ranked pitchers over the two-week period, in order to test the theory that in fantasy baseball, drafted starting pitchers have little added value over starters added off the waiver wire.

This week’s top ten pitchers, from Baseball Monster, looking at Wins, Strikeouts, ERA and WHIP:

• Early draft picks: Jake Peavy, Tim Lincecum, C.C. Sabathia, (Matt Cain)
• Late draft picks: Chris Carpenter, Justin Verlander
• Undrafted: Jason Marquis, Clayton Richard, Edwin Jackson, Phil Hughes

Matt Cain is bracketed because he was an early-middle pick.  Compiling the results from the first four two-week periods of baseball season, I find that of the forty pitchers to appear in the top ten, fourteen are early draft picks, fourteen are late draft picks, twelve went undrafted and two are relief pitchers.

In both our leagues, Hurricane and I spent very few resources on starting pitching–no keeper spots, nothing earlier than a tenth round pick.  In both our leagues, we’re a little ahead of average in the four categories where starters compete, currently holding 24 of 40 and 32 of 56 total possible points.

I’m not sure how much support/opposition either of these analyses give to the Kawasaki Konjecture.  I’ll try to post a few more tests over the next few days.

Jose Canseco’s Mixed Martial Arts fight, which I broke down earlier, is now complete.  Video here–skip ahead to the 5:20 mark for the start of the fight.  See below for commentary, but watch the video first.

Up against a 7′2 Korean giant, Jose Canseco looks TINY.  He spends most of the match dancing around the octagon, and indeed appears quick and nimble, which is pretty ridiculous.  Eventually, Canseco falls down–I can’t tell whether Hong Man Choi pushes him over, or he just falls on his own–and the giant jumps on him and pummels him.  Fight over.

Hopefully, Canseco will climb the beanstalk back into the ring soon.  The world needs a champion.  And that champion is Jose Canseco.

With the first quarter of the season complete, both my fantasy baseball teams sit in first place.  I wouldn’t say comfortably in first–in one league we’re tied for first–but I wouldn’t say uncomfortably either.  It’s like the teams are sitting on a futon.

Interestingly, the two teams have only one player in common and, given that both are in first place, this player is clearly the key to my early success*.  So, congratulations to my 1st quarter MVP: batting .216, with 9 homers, 1 steal, 32 RBIs, 21 Runs, and a 0.778 OPS, Mr. Dan Uggla.

*note: this post is meant to be sarcastic.  Uggla is not the key to our success; he’s been highly mediocre.  The true key to success has been my and Hurricane’s awesomeness.

I’m a bit of a self-hating sports fan.  I hate the fact that my emotions are dependent on the performance of sports franchises over which I have no control.  I hate all the randomness involved, and the misguided attempts by analysts to explain it all away.  I despise the degree to which referees can influence the outcome of a game, particularly in basketball and football.  I hate the tribalism involved in sports, the arbitrary in-groups and out-groups based on geography.  To be honest, were it not for fantasy sports, I probably never would have made it as a sports fan.

I went to my first Sox game of the season last week.  Co-blogger Jordan’s wife had won a contest to sing the national anthem (she was terrific) so we went out to the game, a smattering of both Sox fans (me) and Twins fans (Jordan).  Before the game, I heard two predictions: The Hurricane, based on the pitching matchup, suggested it would be a high-scoring game, while my grandma, based on her intense sports pessimism, suggested the White Sox would lose.  Both were entirely correct, as the Twins hammered the Sox 20-1.  For me, the most interesting moment came when Joe Mauer stepped to the plate with the bases loaded, two outs, and the Twins up 12-0 in the 6th inning.  Mauer, my uber-keeper, had a chance to boost my fantasy team considerably, without doing any real damage to my actual team; the probability of winning when down 12-0 is essentially the same as when down 14-0 or 16-0: 0%.  There was no hedging going on; sitting in the White Sox’ home park, my grandparents’ seats just down the aisle, I genuinely wanted Mauer to get a hit.  I’d finally learned to love Joe Mauer.

My grandparents left the game early, once it got out of hand.  My brother says it’s the most upset he’s ever seen my grandpa.  I left the game feeling pretty good.  The national anthem was great.  It was a beautiful day.  I was with a good group of people.  And, as much as I’m supposed to care about the team that geography assigned me, I care more about the team I actually had a hand in selecting.  Kenny Williams, the White Sox GM, is the genius who decided to sign lead off hitter Scott Podsednik, who reached base twice and promptly made baserunning blunders both times.  I drafted Joe Mauer.  The White Sox are in fourth place in the woeful AL  Central; both my fantasy squads are in second, and I have a good chance to win both.

Fantasy sports put your team’s fate in your own hands.  They cut down on randomness, replacing the seven game series with either an entire season’s worth or at least ten or twelve sets of games played by multiple teams.  And geographical tribalism disappears completely; the only other person who influences my fantasy team lives in Japan.  So tell me, am I confusing fantasy for reality?  Am I mistaking what sports is really about?  Or is everybody else?

Update (Editor’s Note): Here’s the video of Marlene singing the National Anthem.

So I noticed that in the league that we play in, most owners are already in the hole when it comes to games played for catchers. The only owners who aren’t “in the red,” are the owners who have 2 catchers or have Victor Martinez. More specifically, I noticed it first for myself and have been trying to figure out how to ‘make up’ those games. So, how do you do that?

First off, the reason a deficit occurs is because even the most resiliant catchers don’t catch EVERY game. Victor Martinez is going to be the exception here since on days he doesn’t catch, he’s definitely still in teh lineup either at 1B or DH (reason #55 why I should’ve drafted him in the 3rd round when I debated between JJ Hardy and him. JJ Hardy being JJ Hardy was the first 54 reasons btw). The other important thing to note is that catchers often catch for a specific pitcher. So, for example (not a real example) for the Twins, Joe Mauer will catch 4 of the 5 starters and Mike Redmond catches for 1 of them. It’s probably a 3/2 split right now for the Twins due to Mauer’s coming back from an injury, but he DHs whenever he’s not catching. Again, not many catchers like that.

So knowing that the majority of owners will slowly bleed games and thus stats for this position, I did a quick search to see if I could figure out what catchers are matched with which pitchers. I couldn’t find squat on this. Granted, it’s taken me longer to write these 3 paragraphs than I spent time searching, but is this something that should be utilized? There are days off, but really, unless you’re carrying 2 catchers, how often does a day off really align with a free roster spot? Shouldn’t there be a ‘catcher probables’ list out there for me to take advantage of? Especially since I’ve got mediocre catchers right now, I need to take full advantage of maximizing the roto position, right?

Thoughts? Anyone want to do this for me? I’m too lazy to compile it…

Every two weeks, I post the top ten ranked pitchers over the two-week period, in order to test the theory that in fantasy baseball, drafted starting pitchers have little added value over starters added off the waiver wire.

This week’s top ten, from Baseball Monster:

• Early draft picks: Roy Halladay, C.C. Sabathaia, Jake Peavy
• Late draft picks: Justin Verlander, Johnny Cueto, Zack Greinke
• Undrafted: Matt Harrison, Rick Porcello, Jered Weaver, Wandy Rodriguez

Greinke is notable in that he’s made this list for each of the first three two-week periods, while Halladay has made the list twice .  Porcello is interesting in that he went undrafted in one of my leagues, while in the other he was drafted and then dropped.  Weaver and Rodriguez went undrafted in one league, while in the other they were drafted and held.

The most interesting player on the list, however, is Matt Harrison, who’s the second best starter over the last two weeks (three starts) and yet, is unowned in both my leagues.  Hurricane, if you’re reading this, should we add him?  Why/why not?  Anyone else reading this, will you add him?  Why/why not?

I play in a fantasy baseball keeper league where the first three rounds of draft picks cannot be kept.  As a result, early fourth round picks are very valuable, since they’re the first players available to be kept.  Keepers can span four years, so if you draft someone after the third round, or add him off waivers, you can keep him up to three times.  Most people use these early picks on high-upside players, who might not immediately put up great numbers, but are likely to contribute down the road.  I chose a slightly different tactic, making a somewhat safe pick, that may have much more upside than anyone thought.

Here are the first four picks in the fourth round: Matt Wieters, Justin Upton, Adam Wainright, Howie Kendrick.  Wainright is a starting pitchers, and his selection is a violation of the Kawasaki Konjecture (which, incidentally, applies to keepers) and his early numbers are not so impressive (4.35 ERA, 1.57 WHIP).  The other three are unestablished prospects; Upton and Kendrick each played about 100 games last year, while Wieters has yet to reach the major leagues.  All three could be great, but their selections beg one big question: how the hell did Joe Mauer slip to me with the next pick?

Mauer, 25, also a huge prospect a couple years back, had two years’ experience, one season was mediocre, the other was very good.  He had a mild injury and was expected to miss some time, but given his keeper eligiblity, it was a very easy selection.  Now, it turns out that Mauer may have much more upside than anyone imagined; through his first 12 games he has four homeruns; last year he hit nine in 146 games.  It’s a small sample set, but so far Mauer’s looking better than any Wieters owner could ever hope for.

One more note: I’ll let the manager who drafted Upton off the hook.  Not only is Upton looking really good, the managers had already kept a catcher, Geovany Soto.  If your keeping score on catchers, Mauer OPS: 1.343, Soto OPS 0.561, Wieters OPS 0 (has yet to play a game).

I was out for drinks last night with some friends I hadn’t seen in years, and right as one of them was explaining his dissertation, I yell out, “It’s over, it’s over,” and start pumping my fist.  Everyone was thoroughly confused, unaware and mostly uninterested in the TV screen showing the Blackhawks with a two goal lead, and fifteen seconds on the clock.

TV screens in bars are a terrible thing.