Since my Michael Young post I linked to over a month ago, I have made 11 posts at my new blog How-to-Win Sports. Below is a list of what you can find there. I hope you'll take a look.

Dodgers Payroll and Manny - how the Dodgers could have made their team better by going without Manny

Bill James takes on the BCS - a link to James' article about how the BCS is designed to simply blame the computer rankings and his request to all statisticians to refuse to work with the BCS

Could I see some evidence, please? - an argument against the belief that Bobby Abreu would have accepted arbitration if the Yankees had offered

Corky Simpson's Non-Vote for Rickey Henderson - arguments against the logic of Corky Simpson's response to criticism of his lack of voting for Rickey Henderson into the Hall of Fame

Ignorance among Sportswriters - a link to King Kaufman's article that points out that many sportswriters treat their ignorance like it's a skill

Daily Fantasy Sports Action: 01/13/09 - a fantasy sports primer for winning your league

Fantasy Sports: Michael Young - a look at how his move to third base will impact his value

Fantasy Sports: The Value of Relievers - an explanation of how "paying for saves" is often a good move

Top Starter or Top Closer? - a comparison of the effects of drafting a top starter versus drafting a top closer

Shane Battier: The No-Stats All-Star - a link to Michael Lewis's exceptional article of how Shane Battier provides most of his value outside the box score

Edgar Renteria: Does his hamstring trouble tell the whole story? - a look at the effect of Renteria's bothersome hamstring on his poor first half in 2008

I plan on doing one of these posts here at Fox Sports every couple of weeks, but I hope you'll check out my new blog more often.

Over at my new blog, I just put up a new post that I think a few people will find interesting titled Does Michael Young have trade value? If interested, go take a look. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so at the new blog as my email address associated with this blog hasn't been checked in over a year.

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?