Wednesday night, I sit down to catch a few innings of the Cubs vs. Padres on mlb.tv with my wife. All seems to be going just fine. The Cubs are up 1-0 with Sean Marshall on the bump twirling a beaute. First problem was the top of the 7th inning. Ramirez grounded out to start the inning, then Barrett, and Murton both drew walks from David Wells. Mark DeRosa dropped a bloop hit over Marcus Giles’ head to load the bases. If you’re Lou Pinella and you have Cesar Izturis coming up you can do one of 2 things. Pinch hit, or give Izturis strict instructions to look for a walk (with Wells’ sudden propensity to give a free pass), or hit a sacrifice fly. Izturis worked the count to 3-1. Perfect, you take the next pitch and you try and get a cheap insurance run, right? Wrong. If you’re Cesar Izturis, you ground weakly to the second baseman to start a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning. Infuriating.

Then in the next inning when Josh Bard singled, you have to take out Marshall. In fact, Lou came out to visit the young lad, only to keep him in the game. I’m sure that he (Marshall) wanted to stay in, and get the next guy. Unfortunately, the next guy, Kevin Kouzmanoff, got him and homered deep to left to give the Padres a 2-1 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

Lou, you need to earn you keep. We’re about a quarter of the way into the season. I know Lou knows baseball. He just needs to show it now.

Starting pitchers vs. Relief pitchers
In your standard roto league there are 5 pitching categories (strikeouts, wins, saves, earned run average - ERA and walks and hits per inning pitched - WHIP)

Traditionally starting pitchers have the advantage in wins and strikeouts. relief pitchers obviuously have the advantage in the save category. Now is when it gets interesting. ERA and WHIP are up for grabs. Depending on your point of view, managers usually stock their teams with either starters or relievers.

I come from a points based-system that rewards starters more than relievers, so I skew to the starters. I think your best pitchers are your starters, so go with the best. In our league you can have up to 2 starts a day (this is to limit “streaming” - more on that in a later post), so you can rack up some good stats if you have a decent pitching staff. Another good thing about starters is that you know they’re going to get in the game. You obviously don’t know whether they’re going to pull a one-hit shutout out of their ass, or implode and give up 6 in the first inning, but you know they’re gonna have the chance.

With relievers, you never know what you’re going to get. Are they going to even get in the game? If they do get in the game, they have just as likely a chance to give up a ton of hits and runs. That’s pretty much why I like to limit my relief pitchers. I am currently carrying 2 relievers (Jeremy Accardo and Dan Wheeler). Obviously not top shelf relievers, but they’re getting the job done. Other than that I stick with my starters.

Can we trade Jacque Jones and Cliff Floyd for half of the Dodger’s bullpen?

It’s just unacceptable to be in the position to win so many games and then to win so few of those.

The other day the TV cameras showed Lou exasperated, seemingly throwing his hands up, saying “What can I do here?” I couldn’t agree more.

The starting pitching for the Cubs has been better than advertised. For the most part, they’ve scored the runs. But the bullpen is killing the Cubs (and suprisingly it’s not Ryan Dempster).

I NEED RYAN THERIOT TO STAT IN THE LEADOFF SPOT.

I started writing this post, only to see when the lineup cards came out for Monday’s game that Alfonso Soriano was batting 3rd in place of injured Derrek Lee (neck spasms), and Theriot was leading off. I had a gut feeling about Theriot in the leadoff spot, so I decided to look at the numbers (as of 5/13).

On-base Percentage:
Theriot - .376
Soriano - .356

Strikeouts:
Theriot - 14
Soriano - 28

Walks:
Theriot - 9
Soriano - 5

Stolen bases:
Theriot - 6
Soriano - 5

Average:
Theriot - .322
Soriano - .320

Soriano can bring some pop to the top of the lineup, but his high strikeout total and low walks lead me to want Theriot in the 1 hole, and Soriano to move to 2nd in the lineup. If Soriano moved to number 2, it would make for a really tough top of the lineup (Theriot, Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Murton/Barrett). I like that, and I think that would lead to more runs. And with the bullpen in the shape that it’s in… the Cubs could ALWAYS use more runs.

On Mother’s Day, the pink bats and wristbands were in full effect. The Mariners squeaked out a win Sunday to take the weekend series with the Yankees. Horacio Ramirez led the charge with 6 1/3 strong innings of work. For the Yankees, veteran Andy Pettitte only gave up 2 runs over 7 1/3 innings.

The Yankees definitely had their chances. In the top of the 8th they had men on first and second with only 1 out. Brandon Marrow came in and proceeded to strike out Alex Rodriguez to end the inning in dramatic fashion, much to the delight of the Safeco faithful. JJ Putz came in and gave up a double to Hideki Matsui, but locked it down by striking out 3 in the top of the 9th to pick up his 9th save.

This was my first experience of Safeco when it felt full. Everyone around us seemed pretty into the game except for the huge group that was surrounding us that seemed to be there as some part of a group. They were definitely more interested in spelling out “Happy Mother’s Day” on the front of their shirts and “Yankees Suck” on the back, than they were in watching the game. For the most part I don’t have a problem with a little ballpark fun on a Sunday afternoon, but let’s not turn our baseball parks into places where the games take second stage. I know that hearing that from a Cubs fan may not hold any water, but I feel the same way about Wrigley.

All in all a good weekend for the Ms. And just for the record, the Yankees do suck.

What do you do when a fantasy stud you were counting on gets injured? How long do you stay with him? Do you pick up the player who took his spot in the lineup?

This year I’ve encountered this dilemma in a few ways. I drafted Rich Harden in the 14th round. It was late because of his past injuries, but I needed him in my rotation. Of course, he went on the DL shortly after the season began (19 innings to be exact). I not only lost Harden to injury, but more recently Joe Mauer went to the DL. This was a bigger deal. He was my second round pick. Before you get on me too much about selecting Mauer (a catcher) in the 2nd round, let me tell you that he is the best hitting catcher in the league, and I like having the best at any position on my team. I already had Jose Reyes and picked up the best player at his position. But I digress.

The league I’m in has 1 DL spot. I have 2 guys on the DL and still need to field a productive team. In the case of Harden, I threw him in the DL spot and checked the waiver wire for a replacement. There were a lot of middle of the road starters out there, but none that really tempted me. I had a need for some relief pitching (at the time I had no relievers), so I picked up Dan Wheeler. He had recently replaced Brad Lidge as the closer for the Astros. I figured he was on a decent team and had the closers job in his hands. It turns out he has pitched really well for me. Now as some time has gone by, Rich Harden’s return keeps getting pushed back and his prognosis keeps getting worse. This scares me. Similarly a thigh contusion for Mauer has landed him on the 15 day DL. It seems severe for a contusion. How did I deal with having my 2nd round pick on the shelf for at least 2 weeks? I dropped under-performing SS Kahlil Greene, and picked up one of my least favorite baseball players, AJ Pierzynski. He was available and he can provide some good HR and RBI numbers.

I think this is what it comes to when evaluating what to do with an injured player. Is this player going to be able to give me the greater impact long term, or will his absence from my lineup hurt me more in the short term? Of course, if your team sucks, and you’ve stock-piled a bunch of broken players, or don’t have any valid replacements, by all means keep them around. I have decided that Rich Harden and Joe Mauer (Mauer especially) have so much value long term that I will hold onto them, until I get news that they’ll be out for over a month. I’m not even sure if that would prompt me to drop Mauer. He is just such a special player.

A whole other angle of injuries in fantasy baseball is coming back from an injury. When you know a player is coming off an injury, how early do you pick them up? The Roger Clemens situation is not an injury issue but it’s a similar dilemma. When is it too early to pick him up? And more importantly, when do other people think it’s too early to pick him up. All of those questions apply to guys coming off the DL too.

What kinds of policies do you have about injured players?

The only thing worse than the failings of your own fantasy baseball team, is listening to your friends, or just random people go on and on about their fantasy woes. With that in mind, I will spare you a play-by-play of my fantasy team (The BALCO Hitmen). What I do want to talk about it what is good strategy when your team isn’t performing to your standards. Over the next few weeks I will be penning a few articles about how to deal with injuries, slow starts, maximizing an up-and-comer, when to deal an aging star, and more.

My intention is to make this a weekly or bi-monthly column. If anyone out there would like to hear about something in particular, or would like to take a stab at writing a column for Friday Fantasy Feature (FFF), by all means, let me know with a comment.

The team that everyone (including myself) had high expectations of, and then so quickly discarded is currently the hottest team in the National League. The Cubs have won 5 in a row and 8 of their last 10. How are they doing it?

It all started with the rain-shortened game last week in Pittsburgh. In that game, Alfonso Soriano went deep for the first time. He also hit a home run in the following game. Of course, Soriano is not the only reason for the Cubs success, but I think that it plays into it. It plays into it for even more than face value. I think the Cubs players were sitting around in the early season looking for Soriano to take the offense on his shoulders. That’s pretty silly for a team who features Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez in the 3 and 4 holes. It seems that Soriano is settling in and the offense is taking care of what they need to.

The pitching has also been a highlight in the last week. Jason Marquis and Ted Lilly have been welcome additions and have performed way better than I expected them to. And Rich Hill has blossomed into a solid number 2 starter. The bullpen is still shakey in the middle. I hope that Hendry will make some moves to shore that up as the season wears on.

With the April that the Cubs had, I’m glad to report that as of May 8, 2007, the Chicago Cubs are one game over .500. Now if Milwaukee will just come back to Earth a bit, this NL Central could be interesting.

On September 23, 2006, Jay Gibbons hit a foul ball that struck, of all people, his wife. It was widely reported at the time. Today, one of the finest sports blogs in the universe, Deadspin broke the cover off of this story (a full 223 days later).

Kudos to the crew at Deadspin for their amazing journalism. For the most part, we love their work. Count on Will et al to have their collective finger on the pulse of the 2006 MLB season. Perhaps we chalk this won up to a World Series hangover. Will, get some sleep and keep up the good work.

It’s well documented that ESPN Fantasy Baseball has had some trouble this year. The roster reset actually worked on my behalf. I actually picked up a win in a category. They were definitely upfront with their shortcomings, and have worked hard to make amends.

I log on today and find that they’re still having some issues.

Notice for H2H leagues which use Pitching Games Started Limits. We are aware of the issue that Relief Pitcher stats have not counted if the maximum was reached and are working on a fix which will be in place soon. At that time the system will retroactively run all previous matchups to include RP stats. This might change the final result of your matchup. We apologize for the inconvenience. — ESPN Fantasy Games Team

I definitely know that writing the backend to the ESPN Fantasy Baseball site is incredibly complex, and difficult. But come on guys. You got your mulligan, let’s get this thing nailed down.