I haven't posted much lately, and I apologize for that. Today, I'm announcing that my blog has been moved, and its purpose is also going to be a little different than what I was doing here. The new blog is titled How-to-Win Sports. At the new blog, I'm going to post my daily fantasy sports action, which means that it could be pretty slow until baseball season starts up (I only follow baseball and football). The new blog will also talk about real life moves and their impact on both real and fantasy sports.

Today's post is about my decision for picking keepers in a football league. I'd enjoy seeing your opinion.

Around here, I usually talk baseball without much mention of the football, but I think it's important that both sides of stories get told. In this case, I'm talking about Vince Young. I can't add much more than what Stefan Fatsis had to say yesterday, so I'll just give you the link and tell you to give the situation more thought than the average fan has.

It's been awhile since I've posted on here. In the meantime, I visited the Windy City, got sick, and then visited bears in Gatlinburg (click image for larger picture).



But I'm back and I'm excited for this weekend to get here. No, I'm not talking about the start of the football season. I'm talking about the upcoming 3-game series between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets and the 3-game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Recently, I looked through the schedules to see how many teams controlled their own destiny. Here's the list of teams that control their own destiny:

Tampa Bay Rays
Boston Red Sox
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers

If you're looking for head-to-head matchups between these teams that will greatly affect the playoffs, you'll be disappointed. Other than this weekend's games, the White  Sox and Twins face off September 23-25 and that's it.

But wait, the Rockies could make things interesting. They didn't make the above list, but they only missed it by a 0.5 game. Once we include them, the number of matchups increase greatly. The Rockies face the Dodgers September 12-14, and they face the Diamondbacks September 19-21 and 26-28. Let's hope the Rockies climb their way back into this race and give us more interesting matchups down to the wire.

In the meantime, I'm going to put off football season for one more week and have my eyes glued to the matchups in the NL East and West this weekend.

San Diego Padres - C

Released OF Jim Edmonds

Acquired RHP Chad Reineke for LHP Randy Wolf

Due to their no-trade clauses, the Padres have been unable to trade either Greg Maddux or Brian Giles. You could also argue that they could have tried to move Trevor Hoffman, but with his 10-and-5 rights, he could have also vetoed any trade. Other than trading Wolf for what they could, their hands were basically tied.

 

Philadelphia Phillies - B-

Acquired RHP Joe Blanton for IF Adrian Cardenas, LHP Josh Outman, and OF Matthew Spencer

As one of the few teams I did the Buyer or Seller series on a month ago, I said that the Phillies needed to acquire a starting pitcher, which is precisely what they did. If Brett Myers can keep doing what he has since returning to the majors, the Phillies are a team without any large holes. They are ready to battle the Mets down to the wire in the NL East.

 

Pittsburgh Pirates - A-

Acquired RHPs Jeff Karstens, Daniel McCutchen, and Ross Ohlendorf and OF Jose Tabata for OF Xavier Nady and LHP Damaso Marte

Acquired 3B Andy LaRoche, OF Brandon Moss, and RHPs Bryan Morris and Craig Hansen for OF Jason Bay

It's amazing what happens when an organization decides to set a plan and actually sticks to it. It took the Pirates 15 years to bring in a management team that gets it, but better late than never I guess. The Pirates have finally stopped bringing in mediocre players to get them a small step closer to .500. Instead, they're going headfirst into rebuilding mode. It's still going to be several years until they start to see the fruits of their labor, but at least they're finally moving in the right direction.

 

Cincinnati Reds - D+

Acquired RHP Nick Masset and 2B Danny Richar for OF Ken Griffey, Jr. and ~$4 million

As surprised as I am by the lack of interest in Adam Dunn, I am equally surprised that the Reds found a taker for Griffey. Of course, they're still paying half his contract and didn't really get much in return, but they still found a taker. It was disappointing that they weren't able to move some of the smaller pieces, such as David Weathers, Josh Fogg, or Jeremy Affeldt, but the offers probably weren't too impressive either.

 

Colorado Rockies - D-

Claimed RHP Livan Hernandez off waivers

It seems that the Rockies believed they could repeat their 21-1 streak from 2007 because they decided to not trade Matt Holliday and Brian Fuentes. In addition, they were unable to trade Yorvit Torrealba, which is basically due justice after they made the mistake of re-signing him in the offseason. At 8 GB, it is very unlikely that the Rockies will climb back into the division race (BP's Postseason Odds gives the Rockies a 2.4% chance), and they should have used this opportunity to at least move Fuentes. The claiming of Livan Hernandez is impossible for me to understand. After he posted a 5.48 ERA with Minnesota, what makes them think he'll be any better in Colorado?

I don't have the NL version finished yet, but here's the first 11 teams (by team name).

Houston Astros - D

Acquired LHP Randy Wolf for RHP Chad Reineke

Acquired RHP LaTroy Hawkins for INF Matt Cusick

I'm starting to think that the Astros enjoy mediocrity. As a team filled with veterans, they have no upside. Their core is on the decline, and there isn't much help on the way in the farm system. Although the Astros had basically no shot at the playoffs, they continued to act like they were contenders. They didn't really give up much, but why trade away something with a slim chance of helping in the future for something that has no chance of helping in the future? It just makes no sense, but that's been common among Astros transactions for some time.

 

Atlanta Braves - B-

Acquired 1B Casey Kotchman and RHP Steve Marek for 1B Mark Teixeira

This is a rare trade where I'm basically neutral in opinion. While the Braves got a major leaguer in return (since their team's age dictates that they try to contend again next year), they didn't really get anything of impact either. I'm not impressed, but they didn't give up for nothing either. While they've decided to hold on to Will Ohman, their next challenge is to find a taker for Mark Kotsay.

 

Milwaukee Brewers - A

Acquired LHP CC Sabathia for LF Matt LaPorta, LHP Zach Jackson, RHP Rob Bryson, and PTBNL

Acquired 2B Ray Durham for OF Darren Ford and LHP Steve Hammond

As everyone else has said, the Sabathia trade was great for the Brewers, so I'm not going to spend any more time on the move. I also like the acquisition of Durham for a couple of lesser prospects. Rickie Weeks has only hit righties at a .209/.310/.357 clip while Durham hits them to the tune of .306/.386/.435. Since Durham hasn't been hitting lefties this year and Weeks has, they're perfect platoon partners for each other.

 

St. Louis Cardinals - D

While the Cardinals are spinning their non-moves by saying that getting Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright are like making two great trades, that doesn't address the fact that they sacrifice a lot of offense at their middle infield spots. At 2B and SS, only Aaron Miles has an OPS over .700 at .748. Let me repeat. That's a lot of offense they're sacrificing. When it doesn't take that good of a player to make an improvement, it's a shame that you aren't able to bring in that upgrade. I don't think the Cardinals are going to be able to make the playoffs, but I've been wrong about them before.

 

Chicago Cubs - A

Acquired RHPs Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin for RHP Sean Gallagher, LF Matt Murton, 2B/LF Eric Patterson, and C Josh Donaldson

Although the four guys they gave up all have value, they weren't going to have value for the Cubs. Gallagher could have been a back-of-the-rotation pitcher, but so can Gaudin. Only Donaldson had much of a shot to become a player for the Cubs down the road, but they should have Geovany Soto behind the plate for several years making Donaldson expendable as well. It comes down to the Cubs adding Rich Harden for close to nothing, and in the middle of a pennant race, that goes down as a great move.

 

Arizona Diamondbacks - C

Signed CF Chris Young to a 5-year, $28 million extension

Acquired 1B Tony Clark for RHP Evan Scribner

Acquired RHP Jon Rauch for 2B Emilio Bonifacio

Signed Dan Haren to a 2-year, $32.5 million extension with a $15.5 million option for 2013

Back in December 2006, the Cardinals signed Chris Carpenter to a three-year extension worth $48.5 million. They haven't even gotten to the extension yet, and after his injury problems, he'd likely get less than the $48.5 million he signed for less than two years ago. With all of the performance metrics and scouting reports available, it's possible to somewhat reliably project hitters four-to-five years into the future. We aren't there yet with pitchers, so why are teams signing pitchers to extensions when they're already under contract for two more years? These types of moves just don't make sense. Every game they pitch in, they perform an unnatural movement 100+ times, and I've seen a statistic mentioned that each pitcher has roughly a 40% chance of getting hurt during a major league season. When the risk is so great and you have two more full seasons left until they can leave as free agents, why not delay the decision as long as possible?

 

Los Angeles Dodgers - I

Acquired 3B Casey Blake and about $2 million for C Carlos Santana and RHP Jonathan Meloan

Acquired LF Manny Ramirez and $7 million for 3B Andy LaRoche and RHP Bryan Morris

With Andy LaRoche still around at the time, I have no idea why the Dodgers gave up two prospects for Casey Blake. LaRoche is probably Blake's equal given full playing time in 2008, and LaRoche would help the Dodgers plenty over the next five years as well. On the other hand, the Blake acquisition allowed them to send LaRoche away in a package for Ramirez. The reason I gave it an incomplete deals with whose playing time these moves takes away. If it creates an outfield of Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and Andre Ethier 5 days a week, that's an easy A-. If it puts Ethier on the bench in favor of slap-hitter Juan Pierre, it drops to a B. The difference between Ethier and Pierre is that much. To borrow from Joe Sheehan, the Dodgers have scored 4.76 runs with Kemp leading off compared to only 3.36 with Juan Pierre leading off. Given the lineups since the trade, it's looking more like a B as Ethier got his first start since the trade last night.

Before moving onto the next team, let's look at the Dodgers in an alternate reality. In this alternate reality, the Dodgers signed Barry Bonds instead of acquiring either Blake or Manny. It's a hard argument to say that Bonds would be more distracting than Manny, so that's out the window. In 2007, Bonds was a better hitter (.276/.480/.565 to Manny's .286/.388/.493), and he's arguably a better fielder. Manny will play more often, but the Dodgers have plenty of alternatives to give Bonds the requisite day off once every four or five days. Instead of giving up four good young players, the Dodgers could have coughed up the league minimum Bonds has been asking for and fielded a better team for the rest of the season as LaRoche and Bonds is a better duo than Blake and Ramirez.

 

San Francisco Giants - C

The Giants didn't really have much of interest to trade away. They dealt away Ray Durham for a couple of prospects, and they could always do the same with Randy Winn, Dave Roberts, and Rich Aurilia in August. Other than the young pitchers, there's just not much to the Giants, and it's going to be a while before there is.

 

Florida Marlins - C+

Acquired LHP Arthur Rhodes for RHP Gaby Hernandez

While the Marlins were able to make the typical veteran left-handed reliever deadline move, they still don't have a catcher. It's possible that they can still get a catcher through a waiver trade, but the catcher crop will be limited. As a team that has been outscored by 23 runs on the season, I wouldn't have high hopes for them making the playoffs.

 

New York Mets - D+

Other than a managerial change, the Mets haven't made any major moves, other than those involving the DL. While they still have Fernando Martinez and Jon Niese in the system, they're also missing at least one corner outfielder.

 

Washington Nationals - D-

Signed SS Cristian Guzman to a 2-year, $16 million extension

Acquired 2B Emilio Bonifacio for RHP Jon Rauch

Released SS Felipe Lopez and Cs Paul Lo Duca and Johnny Estrada

I already covered the Guzman extension before it was signed. I don't want to get too much into the absurdity involved here, but I didn't know the dollar amount back then. His two-year extension is nearly identical in price as his current four-year deal. Given that the four-year deal is widely considered a failure, what gives the Nationals the idea that Guzman will be able to give you $16 million in value over the next two years when he failed to do so in the last four?

In exchange for the next 2+ years of Jon Rauch, the Nationals got a 23-year old 2B who hasn't been able to hit for anything of value since he was in A. It's just one more Jim Bowden move that leaves you scratching your head.

---

I should have the last five teams up by the end of the weekend.